Saudi Arabia pledges billions in aid to Yemen as crown prince backs new leadership council – Arab News

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JEDDAH: There was an overwhelming welcome on Thursday for a new push led by Saudi Arabia to end the war in Yemen and restore stability to a country ravaged by seven years of conflict.
Yemen will be governed by a new presidential leadership council tasked with negotiating with the Iran-backed Houthi militia, and a $3 billion aid package funded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE will shore up Yemen’s devastated economy.
The new moves were welcomed by the governments of Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Djibouti, France and Russia, and by leaders of the GCC, the Arab League, the Arab Parliament and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation.
They followed a week of talks in Riyadh involving rival leaders from across Yemen’s political spectrum. As the talks ended on Thursday, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and Vice President Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar stepped aside to be replaced by the new eight-member presidential council.
“I irreversibly delegate to the presidential leadership council my full powers in accordance with the constitution and the Gulf Initiative and its executive mechanism,” Hadi said.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met the council and said he hoped for a “new page” to turn in Yemen. Saudi Arabia urged the new council to negotiate with the Houthis under UN auspices “for a final and comprehensive solution” to the Yemen conflict.
HRH Crown Prince Receives President and Members of Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council.#SPAGOV pic.twitter.com/khc92hOjZf
— SPAENG (@Spa_Eng) April 7, 2022
Saudi Arabia and the UAE will each inject $1 billion into Yemen’s central bank, and the Kingdom will grant an additional $1 billion in oil derivatives, development funds and a contribution to the UN aid appeal.
A further $300 million from the Kingdom has been pledged to fund the humanitarian response plan announced by the UN in 2022 to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people and improve their living conditions.
The new presidential council will be chaired by Rashad Al-Alimi, an adviser to Hadi who was interior minister in the government of the late Ali Abdullah Saleh. It includes Aydarous Al-Zubaidi, head of the separatist Southern Transitional Council; Sheikh Sultan Al-Aradah, powerful governor of energy-rich Marib province; Tariq Saleh, a militia leader and nephew of the late president; and Abdel-Rahman Abu Zarah, commander of the Giants Brigades, who played a crucial role in repelling the Houthi offensive on Marib city.
The formation of the council was “the most consequential shift in the inner workings of the anti-Houthi bloc since the war began,” said Peter Salisbury, senior Yemen analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Elisabeth Kendall, a researcher at Oxford University, said: “Something big needed to change to get the warring parties on track to a political process. This transfer of presidential powers could be it.”
GCC Secretary-General Nayef Al-Hajraf pledged the bloc’s support for the new council “in its tasks to achieve safety and security” in Yemen.
France also said it welcomed the creation of the council, which it said was “an important step toward restoring a state that serves all Yemenis and is engaged in the political process.”
Recent reforms in Saudi Arabia’s educational system are helping the Kingdom produce highly skilled youth who are ready to meet the demands of the future labor market, Minister of Education Hamad Al-Sheikh said on Friday. 
During a meeting of the G20 education ministers, Al-Sheikh praised Saudi Arabia’s efforts to reform its education system to ensure that students are prepared for future jobs, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. 
The reforms in the education system come as part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 plan to build talented future generations that are prepared for the labor market. 
Recent reforms in the Kingdom’s education sector included expanding equitable access to high-quality early childhood education, the minister said. 
The ministry has been constructing new classrooms, partnering with the private sector, engaging all education stakeholders, and hiring and training early childhood teachers to ensure students are provided with the best education, he added. 
The minister highlighted Saudi Arabia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the Kingdom utilized digital platforms to ensure that students across the country have access to high-quality education, according to SPA. 

 
RIYADH: Saudi author Kendah Jambi bridges the gap between fantasy and reality in her sellout Arabic novel “Al-Rahala.”
The story revolves around a group of people called Al-Rahala, or nomads, who develop the ability to shift realties and travel through the multiverse.
However, problems arise when they lose control and end up being catapulted into a whirlpool of realms beyond their comprehension.
Speaking to Arab News, the 22-year-old author said: “I drowned myself in research of all relevant subjects that may affect the storyline and plot building, such as quantum jumping, lucid dreaming, reality shifting, history and mythology.”
In 1913, Danish physicist Niels Bohr proposed the concept of quantum jumping, laying the basis for quantum physics and the idea of a multiverse where realities can coexist.
Jambi said: “‘Al-Rahala’ is heavily inspired by my personal experiences within the land of waking dreams. I began having lucid dreams, dreams I can control through awareness as an escape mechanism, realizing that the reality I visit in my sleep is a world of wonders I want people to see through my eyes.
• Kendah Jamb said: ‘I drowned myself in research of all relevant subjects that may affect the storyline and plot building, such as quantum jumping, lucid dreaming, reality shifting, history and mythology.’
• She said: ‘The novel is heavily inspired by my personal experiences within the land of waking dreams. I began having lucid dreams, dreams I can control through awareness as an escape mechanism, realizing that the reality I visit in my sleep is a world of wonders I want people to see through my eyes.’
“I have always been an avid reader of the fantasy genre. However, I noticed a lack of such books, especially those written in Arabic by Arab writers, especially females.”
Jambi said that she is unaware of any other books in Arabic that shed light on quantum jumping, lucid dreaming and worlds beyond ours.

The author said that she wrote “Al-Rahala” with the aim of enriching the Arabic writing scene and helping readers fall in love with the Arabic language — much as she did.
Jambi began work on the book in high school and faced several hurdles before launching the book in December 2021.
“Many of the challenges I faced when writing the book was about simplifying my research, and putting it into layman’s terms that set the scene for what the adventurous nomads call realms,” she said.
“Safe to say due to the hardships of such a critical time, it took me about eight years to wrap up ‘Al-Rahala,’ especially since my move from high school to university, the peer pressure, constant stress of exams, and career paths threw off my progress for a while.”
Jambi said that the book is rich in symbolism, such as “blood moon” and “zero land.”
“The blood moon symbolizes many things. It’s an interesting mixture of change and chance. Combine it with the crimson-red hue of the moon, and you get a marker of violence and strange disturbances in nature, foreshadowing many of the events that take place in the book,” said Jambi.
Zero land is considered terra nullius, a land that falls in between nations and is governed by no one, she said. It is a land infested with beasts and a home to outcasts. Despite being uninhabitable, it is a conflicted region due to its strategic geographical location.
“Al-Rahala” is published by Adab Books, and is available at Jarir and Virgin Megastore.
“At first, I was rejected by most publishing houses for different reasons, and the ones that accepted my work had remotely high publishing fees for a student like myself. Thankfully, my family believed in me and supported me throughout the process,” she said.
The young author revealed that the book’s success has encouraged her to complete a trilogy that captures even more of her adventures on the astral plane.
“To all my aspiring fantasy writers out there, write until you perfect your craft. Don’t rush, but allow yourself to sail in the oceans of imagination,” Jambi said.
 
DHAHRAN: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals on Friday launched its first global research consortium.
Chaired by Prof. Omar Yaghi,  the Consortium for a Sustainable Future aims to bring together research and development collaboration bodies from industry, education, and government to overcome obstacles to sustainability.
It has proposed several initial programs, including the air economy program, which is concerned with discovering a new material category under the name “digital materials.”
Such materials will be synthesized using AI, big data, and robots to be later integrated into images of innovative machines. The latter is expected to use large volumes of air, which is considered the most widespread and easily accessible resource on earth.
Other activities may include collecting water from the air, capturing CO2 and transforming it into other higher-value materials or fuels, and purifying the air.
The consortium will adopt an approach under which material is to be converted to machine, where new material categories with premium properties are to be discovered, starting with basic chemistry and material science, to engineering design, and finally to transformation into advanced practical machines outperforming existing applications.
KFUPM president Dr. Mohammed Al-Saqqaf expressed his hope that the CSF could be a game changer in how the full potential of cooperation in research and development should be launched.
He also expressed his excitement about the pioneering procedures that would be adopted by the consortium.
Using a multidisciplinary approach, consortium members will cover all expenses, starting with the expenses of the academic institutions where basic research is conducted and the expenses of the developers involved in rapid expansion and product design to reach the end user where technical solutions can eventually spread.

 
JEDDAH: Senegalese President Macky Sall on Friday visited the Prophet’s Mosque in the Saudi city of Madinah, where he performed prayers, and was greeted by local authorities, Saudi Press Agency reported.
Upon his arrival at the Prophet’s Mosque, he was received by the Assistant General for the Affairs of the Prophet’s Mosque, Dr. Mohammed bin Ahmed Al-Khudairi, and a number of officials.
Sall arrived at Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Madinah, where he was received by the Undersecretary of the Madinah Region, Wahib bin Mohammed Al-Sahli, the Director of the Royal Protocols Office in Madinah, Ibrahim Berri, and a number of officials.
Hessa Al-Hagbani has been Talent Management Specialist in Diriyah Gate Development Authority since January 2022.
In her current role she plays a key role creating an extraordinary learning and development experience to enhance employees’ knowledge, skills, and competencies by identifying and analyzing employee learning needs while conducting consultation sessions for DGDA staff to support their development and curate their development plans.
She participated in the design of end-to-end professional development programs such as higher education program, diriyah graduates program and tour guides program and worked with internal stakeholders for automating the learning process and developed Katateeb Learning Management System.
Between December 2019 and December 2020, she was a Human Capital Officer involved in the enrollment process of DGDA talents with top educational institutions while working on several initiatives such as Care to Share which promotes knowledge transfer among DGDA family members.
Between December 2020 and December 2021 she was a Human Capital Development Senior Officer where she designed and implemented an elevated induction program for new joiners and worked in training programs communication, enrolments, and quality monitoring while aligning with internal and external stakeholders.
In 2019 she experienced a massive career growth as she joined DGDA as the first Cooperative Trainee in Human Capital Division and progressed along the way.
Al Hagbani graduated from King Saud University, Riyadh in 2019 with first class honors in bachelor’s degree in Human Resources Management also obtained Better Conversation and Coaching Certificate in 2021 and became a Certified Associate in Human Resources (CIPD) in 2020.
 

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