Former Saudi ambassador and diplomat Abdullah al-Moallemi said his 12 years of service as Saudi Arabia’s permanent representative to the UN coincided with one of the most difficult times in the Arab region.
Moallemi came under pressure that what happened in 2011 in the Arab region was a recession of economic, cultural and social norms, and that Saudi Arabia was determined to show its sensible vision to maintain stability in the region and triumph over what he described. like the Arab world. recession period”, being a style for Arab citizens around the world.
The former diplomat said he was very happy to be able to constitute the kingdom on the main foreign platforms, and its explicit capacity for discussion and argumentation to express the Saudi point of view. “It was an exclusive and rich experience that still touches me even after concluding this bankruptcy. of my diplomatic trip,” he said.
During a seminar on “Diplomatic Life” at the Riyadh International Book Fair, Moallemi recalled with his host, journalist Hadi al-Fakih, many moments of his educational career in Oregon, United States, his diplomatic missions and his 10 years of service. Representative of Saudi Arabia to the UN.
“I am a soldier of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Salman bin Abdulaziz and his Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and I will serve this beloved country in all capacities,” he said.
Moallemi also recalled his formative years in Al Qunfudhah province, where he was born. “My mother had a huge influence on my life. I learned to read and write from my father, but my mother’s fondness for culture and science propelled her children to succeed in high educational standards,” she said. “My mother was born in the village of Al-Dara, on the outskirts of Abha. While my father cared about her paintings in the army, she devoted her time to teaching, motivating, and educating us for life. . Although he was in the army, my father was much more diplomatic than my mother, who was known for her steadfastness, both were on the same page when it came to the importance of reading and education.
The former diplomat revealed that he is using an e-book that presents his memoirs and memories of his educational and professional career. Titled “Soldier and Soldier’s Son in International Diplomacy,” the e-book will be launched in November and will be available for discussion in the next edition of the RIBF.
Moallemi recalled that when asked what his wishes were as a child, his answer was unfamiliar: He said he aspired to be an ambassador. Years later, he met his dream and became Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Belgium, the European Union, NATO and Luxembourg. , and then the UN, the dream of each and every diplomat.
“I was very happy for this opportunity and for the confidence of the Saudi leadership, to have been selected through Prince Saud Al Faisal to constitute my country for 12 years at the United Nations. Today I am relieved that I have effectively completed my project and left the duty of the most productive diplomats,” he said.
Moallemi also recalled several meetings he had with former Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal and how he sought his recommendation at the start of his diplomatic mission.
Japan experienced its warmest September since records began 125 years ago, the weather company said, in a year expected to be the year in human history.
The sweltering average temperature in September was 2. 66 degrees Celsius higher than usual, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Monday.
That’s the “highest figure since statistics began in 1898,” the firm said in a statement.
This year is expected to be the year of human history, as climate change accelerates, with countries such as Austria, France, Germany, Poland and Switzerland each announcing their September as a record.
Across Japan last month, one hundred of the 153 sites broke an average temperature record, with Tokyo hitting an all-time high of 26. 7 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit), Osaka at 27. 9 degrees Celsius and Nagoya at 27. 3 degrees Celsius.
The increase in the average temperature, of 2. 66 degrees Celsius, is “extraordinary” and “easily exceeded the previous maximums,” Masayuki Hirai, director of the meteorological agency, told AFP on Tuesday.
“If it’s not an abnormally high temperature, I don’t know what is,” he said.
French meteorological authority Météo-France said the September temperature in the country will hover around 21. 5 degrees Celsius, or between 3. 5 C and 3. 6 C above the 1991-2020 reference period.
The United Kingdom also equaled its record for September since records began in 1884.
The average global temperature in June, July and August was 16. 77 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous record set in 2019, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a report.
In September, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders that the climate crisis had “opened the gates of hell. “
In his opening remarks at the Climate Ambition Summit, Guterres referred to this year’s “appalling heat” but stressed: “We can still limit the increase in global temperature to 1. 5 degrees,” referring to the goal considered necessary in the face of a long-term climate catastrophe. .
China, which aims to have a primary space force by 2030, has opened up a key lunar project for foreign cooperation as project timelines move closer to building a permanent habitat at the moon’s south pole.
China welcomes countries and organizations in its Chang’e-8 unmanned project and joint implementation of projects “at the project level,” the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said Monday at the 74th International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The mission-level plans mean China and its foreign partners could simply release and put their spacecraft into operation, conduct spacecraft “interactions” and jointly explore the moon’s surface, according to key details announced on the CNSA website.
International partners are also suggested to “build on” the Chang’e-8 project and independently deploy their own modules once the Chinese spacecraft lands, the CNSA said.
Those interested must submit a letter of intent to the CNSA until December 31. The final number of proposals will be submitted in September 2024.
The Chang’e-8 project will be in 2026 that of Chang’e-7, which also aims to search for lunar resources at the south pole of the Moon. Both projects will lay the foundation for the structure of the Beijing-led International Lunar Center. Reseek Station (ILRS) in the 2030s.
China, which deployed an unmanned probe to the moon in the Chang’e-5 project in 2020, plans to send an unmanned Chang’e-6 probe to the far side of the moon in the early part of 2024 to retrieve soil samples.
China aims to send astronauts to the moon until 2030.
China’s timetable for building an outpost at the South Pole coincides with NASA’s more ambitious and complex Artemis program, which aims to return U. S. astronauts to the lunar surface by December 2025, barring delays.
In the Artemis 3 mission of 2025, two American astronauts will land on the lunar south pole, a region hitherto unexplored by any human being. The last time a human being set foot on the Moon was in 1972, as part of the American Apollo program. .
Artemis four and five manned missions are scheduled for 2027 and 2029 respectively.
U. S. law prohibits NASA from engaging with or in China.
In September, 29 countries (including India, which landed a probe near the moon’s south pole in August) signed the Artemis Accords, a pact developed by NASA and the U. S. State Department. The U. S. government is working to establish criteria for behavior in space and on the surface of the Moon. .
China and Russia are signatories to the agreement.
China, for its own lunar station program, has only counted on the participation of Russia and Venezuela.
Beauty brands are turning to research and technology to find spots that appeal to shoppers, according to a report by The Guardian.
Perfume is an art that dates back to ancient Greece, but fashionable perfumers are starting to look beyond their noses to expand fragrances as likely as possible to seduce us. Instead, they are turning to AI.
Fragrances can now be designed to elicit emotional reactions with ingredients called neuroodors: odors revealed by biometric measurements to elicit other positive emotions such as calm, euphoria, or drowsiness. Hugo Ferreira, a researcher at the Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering in Lisbon, is mapping brain activity and reaction to fragrances to create a database of neurosmellers.
He says smell is fascinating. ” With sight and hearing, you can believe the face of something you enjoy or your favorite song. It’s hard to believe in a smell even if it can galvanize a torrent of feelings and memories.
Ferreira says this is due to the disposition of the olfactory system. Messages from olfactory receptors are sent through the olfactory bulb to other areas of the brain ranging from memory to thirst and stress reactions.
“Smell is the most varied sense with many other receptors. It is estimated that there are about 400 more families of olfactory receptor genes. Among other things, those varied connections can determine how we can ‘smell fear’ or the smell of victory. “Added.
Many attractive brands have invested in neuroescent studies and technology, as the possibilities of creating perfumes displayed for the well-being of consumers are immensely immense. L’Oréal has partnered with neurotechnology company Emotiv to create an “experience” of perfume options.
In 2023, shoppers at Yves Saint Laurent retail stores around the world used headphones to create an electroencephalogram (EEG) to find out what fragrances appealed to them. The effects so far show that 95% of consumers who have used the headphones have discovered the right fragrance. fragrance.
Fashion and perfume company Puig says it took forty-five million brain readings in men aged 18 to 35 to fine-tune Paco Rabanne’s Phantom cologne, adding lavender and lemon to the formula as a result of their research.
Irresistible Givenchy eau de parfum, the latest version of the Very Irresistible range, a bestseller for 20 years, is a rose extract called “anti-morose”, selected after biometric research.
More than a hundred dolphins died in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest last week as the region faces a severe drought, and many more could die soon if water temperatures remain high, experts say.
The Mamiraua Institute, a think tank of Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, said two more dead dolphins were discovered Monday in the domain around Lake Tefe, which is for mammals and fish in the domain. A video provided through the institute shows vultures. pecking at dolphin carcasses stranded in the lake. Thousands of fish also died, local media reported.
Experts consider maximum water temperatures to be the most likely cause of death in the region’s lakes. Since last week, temperatures have topped 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Lake Tefe area.
The Brazilian government’s Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, which manages the conservation areas, said last week it had sent veterinarians and aquatic mammal experts to investigate the deaths.
There are about 1,400 river dolphins in Lake Tefé, said Miriam Marmontel, a researcher at the Mamiraua Institute.
“In one week we have already lost about 120 animals, which can represent between 5 and 10% of the population,” says Marmontel.
Workers have been rescuing dolphin carcasses since last week in a place where dry rivers have hit substandard riverside communities and trapped their boats in the sand. Amazonas Gov. Wilson Lima on Friday declared a state of emergency due to the drought.
Nicson Marreira, mayor of Tefe, a city of 60,000, said his government cannot deliver food directly to some remote communities because rivers are dry.
Ayan Fleischmann, geospatial coordinator of the Mamirauá Institute, said the drought has had a major impact on communities surrounding the Amazon region.
“Many communities are becoming isolated, without good quality water, without access to the river, which is their main means of transport,” he said.
Fleischmann said the water temperature rose from 32 degrees (89 degrees F) on Friday to about 38 degrees (100 degrees) on Sunday.
He added that they were still in the process of discovering the cause of the dolphins’ death, but that the maximum temperature remained the main cause.
Indonesia on Monday unveiled Southeast Asia’s first high-speed railway, a delayed and subsidized multibillion-dollar undertaking through China that President Joko Widodo hailed as “one of our modernizations. “
With a top speed of 350 kilometers per hour, the “Whoosh” bullet exercise can link the capital, Jakarta, with Bandung in forty-five minutes.
In the past, the 140-kilometer adventure would have required about three hours by train, AFP said.
“The Jakarta-Bandung bullet exercise marks our efficient, user-friendly and built-in mass dispatch system,” Widodo said at a rite at the capital’s central exercise station.
“It is a symbol of our modernization of public transport, in the best connection with other modes of transport. “
Widodo said the 600 people will exercise the first high-speed rail transport in Southeast Asia.
This is the Beijing Belt and Road Initiative, a decade-long program of China-backed infrastructure projects.
The president said the call was an acronym representing the motto “Waktu Hemat, Operasi Optimal, Sistem Handal,” which in Bahasa Indonesian means “time saving, optimal operation, reliable system. “
It was built through PT KCIC, which is comprised of four Indonesian state-owned corporations and China Railway International Co. of Beijing.
First, the task was expected to cost less than $5 billion and be completed by 2019.
However, delays due to structural difficulties and the Covid-19 pandemic have led to higher costs.
In preparation for its inauguration, the government carried out public tests of the new high-speed line.
Last week, Transport Minister Budi Karya Suma announced he would extend the high-speed rail line from Bandung to Surabaya, the country’s second-largest city.
Last month, Chinese Premier Li Qiang joined Minister of State Luhut Pandjaitan in the exercise during his stopover in Jakarta for summits with Southeast Asian leaders.
An endangered Sumatran rhino, the smallest and hairiest of the four five existing rhino species, was born last week in Indonesia in a conservation area, the government said Monday.
Weighing around 27 kilograms (59. 52 pounds), the as-yet-unnamed little female was born Saturday at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) facility in Way Kambas National Park in tropical Southeast Asian Lampung province.
Covered with black hair, the newborn got up about forty-five minutes after birth. The next day, he started walking through the jungle, the Environment Ministry said in a statement.
The mother, Ratu, 22, is in good health, the ministry said.
Ratu is originally from Lampung, while his partner, Andalas, 23, was born at the Cincinnati Zoo in the United States, but has since moved to the same park as Ratu.
In the past, the couple had Delilah in 2016 and Andatu in 2021.
“This is smart news, only for Indonesia and for the whole world,” Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya, said in a statement.
There are 80 Sumatran rhinos left in the world, according to a 2019 threatened species assessment by the Indonesian government.
The mammal, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, is the Asian rhinoceros with two horns that can grow up to 1. 5 meters tall and weigh between 500 and 960 kg.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, divers came to a thin strip of sand at the far end of New York City. From oxygen tanks attached to their backs, they went deep into the sea and descended into an environment very different from their old terrestrial environment of concrete, traffic and sidewalks full of garbage.
Horseshoe crabs and crustaceans move slowly over seabeds encrusted with barnacles and coral colonies. Robin, blackfish and whimsical angelfish swim in the cloudy ocean tinged green by algae leaves.
Not everything is pretty. Plastic bottles, candy wrappers and miles of fishing lines with the tides, putting marine life at risk.
The underwater mess isn’t visible from shore, but that’s something that has long troubled Nicole Zelek, a dive instructor who four years ago began monthly cleanups at this small cove in the community of Far Rockaway, where New York City meets the Atlantic Ocean. about 6. 4 kilometers. south of John F. Kennedy International Airport, Queens.
A culture of using single-use plastics and hard-to-degrade fabrics has littered the world’s waters for decades, posing a danger to marine life such as seals and seabirds. By 2025, some 250 million tons (226. 7 million metric tons) of plastic will end up in the oceans, according to the PADI AWARE Foundation, a conservation organization that sponsors a global task called Dive Against Debris.
Dive after dive, small teams like Zelek’s check to repair some of the damage.
“Every month we give an award to the strangest discovery,” he said. Among them were goat skulls, perhaps used as a component of a ritual, Zelek surmises.
“The best find of all time is an authentic ATM. Unfortunately, it’s empty,” he said.
The result of divers on a Sunday last summer wasn’t much, however, there were clusters and strands of fishing lines untangled from underwater objects. What divers cannot remove by hand is cut with scissors.
“Unfortunately, many crabs and horseshoe crabs, which are threatened, get entangled in the fishing line and then die,” Zelek said.
While more ambitious projects are underway to collect massive accumulations of floating debris in deeper waters, small-scale coastal cleanups like Zelek’s are one component to addressing ocean pollution, said Nick Mallos, vice president of conservation at Ocean Conservancy.
“The science is very transparent and it’s about addressing the global plastic pollutant crisis,” he said. “We have to do everything we can. “
Every September, the conservation organizes month-long foreign coastal cleanups. Since its release just four decades ago, cleanup operations have recovered approximately 400 million pounds (181. 4 million kilograms) of debris from coastal spaces around the world.
The way to fight the release of plastics into the oceans, Mallos said, is to reduce global dependence on them, especially in the packaging of customers’ products. But human-driven cleaning is the least expensive of all cleaning options.
The Dive Against Debris task invites what organizers call “citizen scientists” to examine their dive sites to help catalog the myriad of objects that have no place in oceans, lakes and other bodies of water. According to the group, more than 90,000 participants conducted more than 21,000 such studies and disposed of 2. 2 million waste, giant and small.
Zelek and his colleagues translate their findings into the project.
Surface debris can be easily cleaned with a rake, but the task is more complicated underwater. Over the years, layers of monofilament fishing line have accumulated. And until a few years ago, no one got rid of lead thread, hooks and ballasts. .
Unraveled, half a kilo of medium-weight fishing filament would stretch just over 6. 4 kilometers. No one can guess how many kilometers of fishing line there are at the back of the canal.
“These little things are what are starting to pile up and become an increasingly vital problem,” said Tanasia Swift, who has been with the organization for a year and works for an environmental nonprofit whose goal is to restore the health of New York City’s water.
“If we see something that doesn’t belong in the water, we remove it,” he said.
While the drivers work, the fishermen throw their lines from a ledge where the cement of the village ends. The beach is basically frequented by citizens who live nearby.
Raquel González is one of those citizens and has been coming to the beach for years. She and a neighbor brought a rake the same Sunday the divers were there.
“There’s a lot to leave blank here. No one leaves blank here. We have to do it ourselves,” he said.
“I love this place, I love divers,” Gonzalez said. “Look at all the smart people here. “
One man died and another was hospitalized Saturday in Australia after a whale struck and capsized his boat during a fishing expedition, the government said.