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The UAE’s Sheikha Fatima bint Hazza was honored on Tuesday with the Arab Woman Award at a ceremony in London in recognition of her contributions to female empowerment in the region and her philanthropic efforts in various countries, Vogue Arabia reported.
Sheikha Fatima has been a strong supporter of cultural initiatives, particularly those involving the arts and sports.
She has endorsed several programs aimed at boosting the cultural scene in the UAE and the region through her role as chairwoman of the board of directors of the Fatima bint Mubarak Ladies Sports Academy and the Fatima bint Hazza Cultural Foundation.
Her other accomplishments include increasing access to education in Bangladesh, building schools in Kenya, and forming the Fatima bint Hazza Fund for Emirati women to pursue higher education abroad, Vogue Arabia reported.
She is “committed to enhancing the role of women in various ways, as she is a supporter of sports and arts, and we are honored to bestow her with the Achievement Award in Cultural Development,” the Arab London Foundation said.
The philanthropist has also helped broaden young people’s interest in fields such as art, literature, sustainability and community interaction, Vogue Arabia reported.
The Fatima bint Hazza Cultural Foundation recently launched a series of short stories for young people focusing on culture, local identity and sustainability
Upon accepting her award, Sheikha Fatima praised Emirati leaders and their efforts to encourage women to pursue their dreams.
“Effective participation and making progress and positive change are the core values that we have been raised on,” she said.
“I am proud to represent my country, the UAE, where women have not had to struggle to obtain their rights but have always been at the forefront since the establishment of the state.”
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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Sheikha Fatima bint Hazza was honored at the eighth edition of the Arab Women Awards in London. (WAM)
Elsayed’s family spent a year curating her works, as well as that of her husband El Dessouki Fahmi, from between 1960 and 1970.
When art becomes a family affair, each member with their own medium and distinct style, keeping legacies alive becomes a personal and collective mission, in which each of them pays tribute to loved ones while reviving a piece of modern art history. ‘Press Illustrations and Other Works’ is an exhibition in Zamalek’s Picasso Art Gallery that has been curated by graphic designer and filmmaker Alia Ibrahim and her father Ibrahim El Dessouki, who sought to honour the works of his late mother and father, painter and illustrator Attayat Elsayed and El Dessouki Fahmi.
Elsayed and Fahmi were both professional illustrators at the prominent Egyptian newspaper El Masa in the 1960s and 1970s, with Elsayed also contributing to Al Joumhouria newspaper. The family spent a year curating the exhibition, navigating the late painter’s extensive archive with a focus on her press illustrations.
“Our main objective was to exhibit the press illustrations, and then we added a selection of their paintings as well,” Alia Ibrahim tells CairoScene. “The process of finding the sketches for the illustrations, and copies of the newspapers they were published in was extremely difficult, and there are still countless sketches to be found and documented.”
Upon entering the gallery, visitors are met with two halls, one dedicated to Elsayed’s work and the other to Fahmi’s (which includes a portrait of Elsayed herself). Elsayed’s pieces reflect a progressive focus on the mundane, capturing movement through her intricate brush strokes. With the ‘Swing Machine’ and ‘Fan’ pieces – her granddaughter’s favourites – Elsayed spotlights the overlooked items and their constant flow in everyday life.
As an artist herself, Alia credits her late grandmother’s presence and talent to her ability to look at the world from a different perspective, with her abstract paintings becoming an inspiration and lens through which she views her own artistic endeavours. The exhibition is currently running at Zamalek’s Picasso Art Gallery until February 27th.
The fonts, celebrating the Kingdom’s culture, will be available free of charge.
The Ministry of Culture on Monday launched an initiative creating three new Saudi fonts.
The fonts, celebrating the Kingdom’s culture, will be available free of charge to individuals and organizations wishing to use them in design, artistic, and creative works, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
The Masmak font has been named after the historic Masmak Fortress, characterized by its durability and strong structure. The font has been described as clear and easy to read and was developed without reference to traditional calligraphy methods, the SPA said.
The second new font, Al-Naseeb, resembles handwritten notes, and has been recommended for use in headlines, texts, literary works, poetry, and children’s stories.
Watad, the third font, was inspired by the tent peg with its letters having curved corners. Its suggested use was for text relating to festivals and sporting events.
The Ministry of Culture launched the initiative in celebration of the Arabic language. In a statement, it said: “It is introducing a unique touch that gives a Saudi identity to Arabic fonts and celebrates Saudi heritage and cultural symbols.”
Saadi Yacef, the Algerian revolutionary leader who fought for his country’s liberation from French colonial rule, died on 10 September 2021. Yacef is perhaps one of the better known of Algeria’s resistance fighters because of the role he played in the creation of the film The Battle of Algiers , directed by the renowned Italian film maker Gillo Pontecorvo.
The Battle of Algiers was filmed in 1965 as a co-production between an Italian creative team and the new Algerian FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) government, whose representative Yacef produced the film and stars as the character of Jaffar.
One of the most extraordinary films ever made, The Battle of Algiers is an emotionally devastating account of the anticolonial struggle of the Algerian people and a brutally candid exposé of the French colonial mindset. Many French people were unhappy with the representation of their army and country in the film. It was not officially censored in France , but the general public and all cinemas boycotted it. It was seen as anti-French propaganda.
In later years, the film was screened to groups classed as revolutionaries and terrorists, apparently becoming a “documentary guidebook” in the Palestinian struggle, and for organisations such as the Irish Republican Army and the Black Panthers, who examined its detailed representation of guerrilla tactics.
It was also shown in the Pentagon in 2003, in the middle of the Iraq War. US Counterterrorism experts Richard Clarke and Mike Sheehan suggest that the film showed how a country can win militarily, but still lose the battle for “hearts and minds”.
What relevance does The Battle of Algiers hold today, 55 years after it was first released?
The message of the film is ultimately one of hope: the oppressed multitude will eventually triumph because their cause is just. The images of revolutionary crowds in the film recall the jerky, grainy footage that has emerged from a wave of recent protests in the last decade, from the Black Lives Matter movement to Extinction Rebellion . Pontecorvo thrillingly captures the power and possibility of large gatherings of citizens, who come together to demand rights, putting their bodies at risk to create social and political change.
Additionally, the film refuses to condemn any of the agents in this conflict. As Pontecorvo has stated
in a war, even if from a historical standpoint, one side is proven right, and the other wrong, both do horrendous things when they are in battle.
A film of contrasts
Shot in black and white, the film is difficult to classify in terms of style. Its military action sequences and tactical montages remind us of films like Zero Dark Thirty and The Eye in the Sky; indeed, it is almost impossible to film a scene of politically-motivated torture without having The Battle of Algiers as an implicit or explicit point of reference.
The collective aspect of the film’s creation, and the socialist ideals that inspired it, link it to what’s called Third Cinema. This was a kind of revolutionary cinema, a cinema of the “Third World”, that was designed to overthrow the systems of colonialism and capitalism.
The Battle of Algiers is also an example of Italian neorealism, a major film movement coming out of mid-twentieth century Italy. The neorealists made films that opposed Mussolini’s fascist regime, and they focused on the hardships of the working class in Italy. Neorealism was a moral and aesthetic system: it brought art and politics together to expose the ills of society and bring about social change.
The Battle of Algiers was shot entirely on location in Algiers, and Colonel Mathieu was the only professional on set. Pontocorvo selected the other actors from the local population based on their faces and expressions.
Other elements of the neorealist style was the use of techniques that create a documentary aesthetic such as the hand-held camera. Pontecorvo also uses extracts from real-life FLN and police communiqués, letters, and title cards. And he used newsreel stock, which was cheaper, but also added to the sense of verisimilitude in the film.
Although he believed the Algerians cause to be just, Pontecorvo wanted to create a nuanced and fair account of the war. Therefore, he sets up a series of contrasts to reflect this opposition between French and Algerian. This is present in the original musical score by Ennio Morricone: while groups of French soldiers rampage through the Casbah to the sound of jaunty military drums and horns, a haunting flute theme accompanies sequences which feature Algerian civilians.
Contrast is also evident in the use of light and shadow: there are strong chiaroscuro effects, perhaps reflecting the themes of right and wrong in the film. Pontecorvo also uses shadow to highlight the covert operations of the Algerians: Ali La Pointe’s face is filmed with deep shadows, and the face of Colonel Mathieu is always brightly lit.
Space provides another important contrast in the film. Frantz Fanon, a famous theorist of the Algerian revolution, describes the colonial world as a world “cut in two” because of the stark divide between the coloniser and the colonised. In The Battle of Algiers, the wide boulevards of the European quarter are juxtaposed to the narrow, winding, labyrinthine alleyways of the Casbah. Space is also divided vertically and horizontally – the European quarter is flat, while the Casbah is steep and sloping.
This opposition of space highlights the gap between rich and poor, coloniser and colonised.
The question of bias
The biggest contrast in the film is of course between the French and Algerians. The embodiment of French and European values in the film is Colonel Mathieu. He is a suave figure, confident and controlled in army fatigues, stylish sunglasses and slick speech – he has more dialogue than other characters in the film. A number of critics have argued that Mathieu is far ‘too cool’, given that he is a practitioner and a proponent of torture.
Yet Colonel Mathieu is not depicted as an ogre: above all, he embodies reason. We see this in his statements about the use of torture, when he uses solid rhetorical devices to justify it. He says:
…do you think France should stay in Algeria? If you do, you have to accept the necessary consequences.
This is persuasive as a logical argument – if you want French Algeria, you have to accept the actions that result in this outcome – torture.
If Mathieu and the French have reason, what do the Algerians have?
Firstly, they have raw, visceral emotion and the power of the group. The victory at the end of the film is a victory of the masses, embodied in two figures – the martyr Ali La Pointe, the illiterate everyman who becomes a hero for the revolution, and the gyrating, anonymous Algerian women, whose gaze outwards to the future closes the film.
This takes me to the final point about what the Algerians have on their side – the power of historical right. We see this through Pontecorvo’s use of chronology – the narrative proceeds as a flashback, until we leap forward in time to the euphoria and mania of the end of the war and the triumph of the revolutionaries. Pontecorvo here glosses over the fact that the real Battle of Algiers was lost by the Algerians, and jumps into a future of eventual victory in the war.
This is how he views the process of history – the masses, with moral right on their side, will eventually win.
Yacef Saadi (R), military leader of the FLN National Liberation Front networks of the autonomous zone of Algiers, poses after being captured at the end of the “Battle of Algiers”. Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images
Within the alienated and antagonist cultures inside Israel’s borders, Arabic and Hebrew—related, but mutually unintelligible languages—cross-fertilize each other.
“Translation” originally meant moving a body. Dead saints and live bishops, for instance, were translated from one place to another. Today, we mostly only use “translation” to mean words transported into other languages, where, unlike bodies, they often change completely.
When Anton Shammas’s Arabesques was first published in 1986, it crossed a notable translational fault line. It wasn’t the first Hebrew-language book written by a Palestinian in Israel, but it became the most famous. The best-seller’s English translation made it to the New York Times’s seven best novels of the year in 1988, but it’s the Hebrew original that drew the attention of scholars Adel Shakour and Abdallah Tarabeih.
“Almost all Israeli Arabs have at least some Hebrew proficiency, and the language is taught in Arab schools,” they explain. “For Israel’s Arab citizens, Hebrew is the key to the dominant Jewish majority and most of its social, financial, and educational resources; it is therefore essential in the minority’s daily life.”
Modern Hebrew is the official language of Israel. The minority Palestinians have a complicated relationship to the majority’s language. Living in Israel means Hebrew is a necessity, but Palestinian identity is intimately connected to Arabic. The language of “Islamic liturgy and the Quran” has a high status among Israeli Palestinians, the majority of whom are Muslim.
“Israeli Jewish society appears to perceive Arab culture as inferior, less modern, and less sophisticated,” write Shakour and Tarabeih, an attitude that includes Arabic. Hebrew, meanwhile, is intimately connected to the identity of Israeli Jews, who in the larger Middle East are a language, religious, and ethnocultural minority.
The fraught relationship between a Jewish state and the non-Jews within it as well as surrounding it, language-wise, meant “Hebrew attained prominence in the non-Jewish literary sphere only in the 1980s, with the works of Anton Shammas, a Christian, and Naim Araidi, a Druze.” (The first Hebrew novel by an Arab, Atallah Mansur’s 1966 In A New Light, proved to be “a fleeting phenomenon.”)
In the press of linguistic intimacies in Israel, the two Semitic—related, but mutually unintelligible—languages cross-fertilize each other, even in the “mutually alienated cultures” found within the state’s borders.
Shakour and Trabeih note that Palestinian “Arabic has borrowed many Hebrew words and even sentences.” Meanwhile, Hebrew, which was revived and modernized in the nineteeth and twentieth centruries, has adopted words from Arabic, as well as a host of other languages including Aramaic, Yiddish, Ladino, Polish, Russian, English, and so on.
Shammas, a noted translator of Arabic into Hebrew (especially of Emile Habibi), is a conscious language bridge-builder between the two languages. Part of this language-bridging means he invents neologisms, new words, in Hebrew.
As Shakour and Tarbeih detail, “Shammas creates new verbal forms in Hebrew by deriving them from nouns along the lines of such derivation in Arabic.” Their first example adds another language to the mix: “the Arabic verb šaksbaranī derived from the noun Shakespeare leads him to use the same derivation in Hebrew.”
Such neologisms can make texts “more obscure” to native readers of a language who have never encountered the word before. Shammas does it to “give the work a highly authentic flavor” to the Arabic culture he wants to introduce to the Jewish Israeli audience.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, some partisans of both Arabic and Hebrew have criticized Shammas’s translations for daring to speak across antagonistic borders. Some Israeli Jews think only Jews can create Hebrew literature. For them, Hebrew is part of the Jewish national character, part of the Zionist project. Some Palestinians think he’s using the enemy’s language, putting a spin on the Italian saying “Traduttore, traditore.”
The saying, meaning “the translator is a traitor,” is usually meant to signify the compromises necessarily made to help language slip across borders into other words. Of course, both languages here, like most languages, are already infiltrated by each other, something language’s border guards never seem to accept.
In line with the airline’s strategy to match capacity with demand, optimize performance with the best in on board experiences for its customers, Kuwait Airways launched its first inaugural flight to New York John F Kennedy Airport utilizing the Airbus A330neo and in setting the record for the longest flight flown by the A330-800 neo in 13 hours.
The award winning Airspace cabin is equipped with a two-class configuration comprising of 32 full flat business class seats and 203 economy class cabin seats on a 2-4-2 configuration. Thus offering passengers state of the art flying experience with more personal space, quietest cabin in its market and the latest generation of in-flight entertainment system and connectivity.
Sustainability From a sustainability and efficiency standpoint, the A330neo offers benefits to both the airline and the traveling public. With double-digit fuel savings and CO2 emissions compared to other aircraft in its category, the A330- 800 allows significantly lower operational cost and therefore competitive ticket pricing. Captain Ali Al Dukhan, Chairman Kuwait Airways said.
“This flight marks a new era in our strategy to right-fit the best of customer experiences while balancing cost efficiencies and sustainability in our operational decisions. The utilization of this aircraft’s long-range capability will also bring double-digit savings, which coincidentally means less harm to the environment, matching closely to our ESG goals. We are proud to take the next step forward in reaching the corporate strategy goals in reducing costs and enhancing marginal performance”.
Mikail Houari, President, Airbus Africa Middle East said: “We are proud that Kuwait Airways has chosen to deploy the A330-800 on John F Kennedy Airport, a key route for the airline. We are confident that the aircraft will provide passengers with exceptional flying experience while providing the airline with unbeatable economics, efficiency and environmental performance.
As a child, she took part in the game she loves against a backdrop of civil war. Now, Britain’s first black female Muslim referee fights for the rights of others as a role model for inclusivity.
A cold, cloudy Sunday morning in West London and 22 grown men are on a football pitch playing in one of the capital’s minor leagues. The standard is not particularly good but nonetheless there is something remarkable about the fixture.
As the tackles fly in, a 1.6-metre-tall figure wearing match officials’ kit and a headscarf brandishes a yellow rectangular piece of plastic.
“My philosophy is that everyone deserves a chance,” Jawahir Roble, Britain’s first black female Muslim referee, tells The National. “But if they keep repeating fouls, I book them.
“I like to control the game first and then I’ll use my cards. The game is not about me. It’s about them having fun and making good memories.”
The contest finishes with a 3-1 home win but, for Roble, 29, the more important result is not the score at the final whistle — it’s that the players amble over to shake her hand and say thank you. Confirmation, she says, of a job well done.
Her extraordinary achievements have been recognised with an MBE in King Charles IIIs first New Year Honours List for services to the Football Association and volunteering work with the education and social inclusion charity Football Beyond Borders.
It is a feat perhaps rivalled only by the journey that has brought her to within tantalising distance of collecting the silver medal at a forthcoming investiture at Buckingham Palace.
Musing on how far she has come, Roble herself once said: “Who would ever think a black, Somali-born immigrant girl with eight siblings could ref a men’s game in England with a hijab on?”
Jawahir Jewels (JJ), as she is commonly known because of the Arabic meaning of her first name, was born in Mogadishu, where she could often be found barefoot in a four-a-side competition with her siblings, kicking scrunched up cloth wrapped in sticky tape around the courtyard of the family home.
Her parents, Mahdi, a grocer, and Safya, sometimes watched the rough and tumble from the sidelines with Jamila, the baby too small to take part, until the moments when the country’s civil war came perilously close. Then, play was suspended as everyone scarpered inside to relative safety.
“You did have to be careful,” Roble recalls. “You could hear gunfire, people screaming sometimes, loud bangs and explosions. I was scared. There were lots of kidnappings and crazy stories.
“But, as a child, it was also very carefree and fun and happy. We still had to get our school and mosque work done. We got told off so many times. But we learnt the system — do our chores and then we could go outside. We had to earn the right to play football.”
After Friday prayer, they would rendezvous with friends to play on a larger patch of muddy ground outside the house, or on the beach at Xeebta Liido by the Somali Sea a half-hour drive away.
The walls of the bedroom shared with her two younger sisters, Amina and Fatima, featured images of David Beckham and, intriguingly given Roble’s future career path, the controversial Italian defender Marco Materazzi, whose aggressive style amassed an inordinate number of bookings.
“With the obsession I have with football, you would think that someone encouraged me or a teacher influenced me. But, no, I just fell in love with it out of nowhere. At heart, I am a complete tomboy.”
As tensions heightened and the war escalated in the early 2000s, the siblings’ outside excursions were curtailed and Mahdi, who had applied for British visas and bought suitcases, put in motion a hitherto secret escape plan.
Ten-year-old JJ, forced to swelter in a coat in anticipation of the colder weather ahead, was taken in a packed eight-seater van to the airport for the 6,400km flight to London.
“We got told: ‘We have to move out.’ No time to tell anyone or sell the shop,” Roble says. “Dad gave it to a relative to look after.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘We’re not coming back here for a long, long time’.”
Landing at Heathrow nine hours later was a shock. “Oh, my goodness, the place seemed massive. So many different people. Like there’s white people, there’s Chinese people. I’m only used to seeing black people. One of my siblings reached out to touch someone’s bright blonde hair.
“I thought: ‘Wow, this is the real world.’”
First stop was Sudbury in north-west London for a few weeks with a relative, then a temporary hotel stay in Kilburn before they were allocated a council house in the shadow of the largest football stadium in the UK.
“Can you imagine?” she asks with an infectious laugh. “Wembley! We could see the stadium — the home of football — from our house. Just amazing. Something I’ll never forget.”
Roble had thought that only players or special fans were allowed into the hallowed grounds but she has since been twice: on a Chalk Hill Primary School trip (“I couldn’t imagine someone like me could go … It was surreal); and last summer when England’s Lionesses beat Germany 2-1 in the European Championships final (“That was incredible”).
In their new garden, the serious rivalry resumed, one team captained by the oldest Roble sister, the other by the oldest brother, and a lemon or potato for a football.
But, after much pleading, her parents soon handed over £3 ($3.69) for a coveted purchase that enabled JJ, who at that time spoke no English, to overcome the language barrier and fit in more quickly at school.
“Because the kid that has the ball gets the friends,” she explains, smiling. “The first words I learnt I think were, ‘pass, pass’ and ‘shoot!’”
The restrictive uniform of long black skirt, white shirt, school shoes and hijab did little to stop Roble from playing every spare minute, skipping breakfast and lunch to take to the field before lessons, in break times and after the final bell.
“Sometimes kids at primary school teased me. Teachers asked how I could play dressed like that. I was like, ‘This is it, this is what Muslim people wear. You have to be covered up.’
“My religion was not an issue. As long as you’re just a nice person, they would accept you in the group. Being a Muslim is about being a good person, being modest and doing what makes you happy.”
When a supportive PE teacher spotted how well Roble was performing in sports, the first seeds of discord were sowed with her parents who expressed a strong preference for their children to excel instead at maths and English.
“My dad actually sat me down and said: ‘You came all the way from Somalia, all the way from the war just so you can play football? We want you to make use of this country’s opportunities. At least learn to be something that can help other people, like a doctor.’”
But, in Roble’s characteristically headstrong way, fulfilling her father’s ambitions was never a realistic outcome.
At 14, she thought the moment she had dreamt of had arrived. Players from Queens Park Rangers’ women’s team visited the secondary school for a coaching session and to seek out talent for the club’s academy.
Roble put in the work, showing off her pace and left-footed skills in the attacking and defensive duties of a centre midfielder.
“I was one of four or five girls who got a letter inviting me to trial. I was so excited. I’m on the bus and I’m reading this letter over and over again. All that letter needed was a parent’s name and a signature.”
When she arrived home, however, her mother tore up the invitation in an act that even now, 15 years later, causes Roble pain to recount.
Heart-broken at her life’s ambition being thwarted, the resigned teenager eventually left school early to begin a design technology course at college.
While there, she took the level one and two coaching badges with Middlesex Football Association before a referee shortage led to her being asked to step in at the last minute, with no experience, to take charge of an under-sevens girls’ match.
“The parents were very nice to me and the girls said how nice it was to have a female referee. So, from that, I continued volunteering as a referee for a whole year at junior level.”
That prompted the FA to fund her formal referee training. “I said to myself: ‘I have to continue, get braver, do different leagues, different age groups.’ Next thing you know I’m doing men’s and women’s. It happened so fast. Within four years, I was doing adult games.”
After joining the women’s pathway, Roble advanced to National League Level 3 and is now determined to progress to the Women’s Championship and Super League, and who knows where after that?
Along the way, she has garnered a clutch of accolades, including the FA Respect Match Official Award 2017 and being named on the BBC’s 100 Women 2019, as well as that MBE on the same honours list as the England head coach Sarina Wiegman, captain Leah Williamson, and players Lucy Bronze, Beth Mead and Ellen White.
When she’s not teaching at a special needs school in London, Roble dedicates herself to promoting inclusivity, defying stereotypes, demolishing barriers and clearing a path for future generations.
There are, she says, no limits to what can be achieved: “Only I can stop myself, and I’m not going to do that.”
Fitness is a priority, and she has also spent countless hours watching YouTube clips of professional referees such as the former Premier League’s Mark Clattenburg to study their positioning during play and how they control the game.
Further inspiration came last November when an all-female on-field refereeing team led by Stephanie Frappart took charge of a men’s World Cup game for the first time in the match between Germany and Costa Rica.
Even her parents are coming around to their daughter’s deep involvement with football, though Roble sounds as though she is meeting them halfway.
“I understand now that they wanted the best for me and to make sure I was protected and safe. They told me, ‘We don’t want any hatred towards you.’ I’ve told them it’s not like that.
“At the end of the day, I’m spreading positivity. I’m sharing my sports journey with young girls, you know, who like me are interested in football. Maybe if they hear my story, they can use it to inspire them and have a shortcut instead of what I did.”
What she did, ultimately, was find the courage to tackle the norms within the Somali community and succeed on her own terms.
“My faith encourages sports, my faith encourages a healthy lifestyle,” Roble says. “I feel like [the issue] was more to do with cultural concerns. Because our culture says girls should be at home, not getting involved in men’s sports. Girls should be shy, keep on the low, low. I’m sorry but that’s not me.
“I have challenged it. Now, in my Somali community, most of them are: ‘Oh, wow, you’re doing a great job.’ And I’m like, ‘So who was the problem? Do you have anything to say now?’”
It is the same toughness displayed when Roble encounters disbelieving looks from players and coaching staff as she walks to her happy place on the pitch or a decision is criticised.
As with all referees, she has received verbal abuse but says it’s nothing she can’t deal with. Despite her diminutive size, Roble’s big personality, confidence and forthright retorts make for a commanding presence — and there is always the “power” of the red and yellow cards in her pocket.
Her story might have had moments of isolation, sometimes in the family setting and at least initially in an unfamiliar country as a refugee, but she seems undaunted by the “loneliness” of the referee presiding over two teams.
“I have accepted that,” Roble says of the latter. “Once I get on the pitch, I feel like everyone is my team. I feel totally free, like nothing else matters. There is no stress, nothing.
“I wanted to be a footballer so, in a way, I am kind of living that dream. It is where I belong.”
When she’s not teaching at a special needs school in London, Jawahir Roble is dedicated to defying stereotypes, demolishing barriers and clearing a path for future generations. Photo: Shutterstock
Morocco’s berry production is one of the country’s key contributors to the agricultural sector.
Morocco has outperformed the US becoming the fourth largest blueberry exporter in the world.
Data from East Fruit said that Morocco exported 53,000 tonnes of blueberries in 2022. Peru was the largest exporter of fresh blueberries last year, with 277,000 tonnes, followed by Chile (105,000 tonnes) and Spain (87,000).
Despite Morocco’s leading position in blueberry exports, the Netherlands exported more blueberries than the North African country in 11 months of last year, the same source said.
“It should be noted that the exports from the Netherlands in 11 months of last year were higher than that of Morocco, having amounted to 104 000 tonnes,” East Fruit reported.
Elaborating on the data, the news outlet said: “However, if we take into account the volume of re-exports, the real result of the Netherlands will be much lower since it imported 130 000 tonnes of fresh blueberries during this period.”
East Fruit also recalled that Morocco ranked seventh place among the largest exporters of cultivated blueberries in 2017.
Berry production in Morocco has contributed to the country’s agricultural sector significantly.
Morocco’s revenues from strawberry exports to the international market are estimated between $40 and $70 million annually.
According to previous data from East Fruit strawberry products are one of the top 10 most exported goods from Morocco.
According to estimates, Morocco exported 22,400 tonnes of fresh strawberries globally in 2022, representing an increase of 17% compared to a year earlier.
Countries like the UAE, Qatar were key buyers of Moroccan goods. In Europe, the US is one of Morocco’s strawberry importers. In 2022, the US imported almost half of Morocco’s strawberry export supply.
The IFFCO Group, one of the UAE’s largest producers of food products, has opened the first 100-percent plant-based meat factory in the region, in Dubai.
Located in the Dubai Industrial City, the THRYVE factory will catalyse the move towards a more sustainable and healthy food chain in the Middle East, actively supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the UAE’s Vision 2051 initiative to bolster food security through diversity and innovation. The factory will provide nourishing, sustainable and healthy local plant-based meat products inspired by the unique flavours of Middle Eastern cuisine.
Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri, Minister of Climate Change and the Environment, said, “The new 100-percent plant-based meat factory supports the UAE’s Food Security Strategy and our mandate to mitigate the impact of climate change. The opening of this innovative new facility also supports our efforts to protect the country’s ecosystems and enhance its food and water security and diversify our food sources. By fostering such robust research and development focused on producing innovative food products, we seek to raise the UAE’s ability to move up the global food industry value chain and achieve first place on the Global Food Security Index by 2051. The new factory represents a significant contribution to sustainability in the food supply chain.”
Hadi Badri, CEO of the Dubai Economic Development Corporation at Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism said, “The opening of this factory, which will pave the way for a dynamic new industry that will boost trade across the region, is a reflection of the UAE’s commitment to pioneer the use of innovative technologies to provide sustainable solutions to real world problems. It contributes to Dubai’s economic diversification journey in line with the goal of the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 to consolidate the emirate’s status as one of the top three global cities. The new facility is a testament to the pivotal role being played by Dubai in promoting the growth and evolution of environmentally sound practices that can alleviate the effects of climate change. By providing opportunities for private companies to invest in sustainable technologies, Dubai is accelerating the creation of a robust and resilient green economy.
“Such initiatives also reflect Dubai’s success in creating a fertile environment for new businesses and investors to thrive, and generating new job opportunities. Dubai and the UAE will continue to work with stakeholders and partners to remain at the forefront of innovation and economic sustainability, inspired by the ambition of our visionary leadership to create a better future for all.”
Saud Abu Alshawareb, Executive Vice President, Industrial Leasing, Dubai Industrial City, said, “DIC is an ideal location for initiatives like the IFFCO Group’s plant-based meat factory that underscore the importance of food security. The Dubai Industrial City is home to a growing number of Dubai-based food manufacturers who are leading the way in introducing innovative food products. This new enterprise adds value to the industry while strengthening our reputation as facilitators of a self-reliant food programme.”
The THRYVE plant-based venture, developed using cutting-edge food technology, contributes to at least three UN’s SDG’s: good health and well-being, responsible consumption and production, and climate action.
The only 100 percent plant-based meat factory in the Middle East, IFFCO’s THRYVE will leverage advanced food technologies to produce tasty, healthy, sustainable and culturally relevant food that meets the needs of the local consumer. In addition, IFFCO is working closely with the government to create regulatory standards for plant-based food products.
The global plant-based meat market was estimated to be worth US$7.9 billion in 2022, and is forecast to reach US$15.7 billion by 2027, according to a report from ResearchAndMarkets.com. The newly opened THRYVE factory will cater to 30 percent of the GCC population, stimulating the development of the market for local plant-based products. As per proprietary research, the GCC has the potential to be a future leader in developing food products for flexitarians, people whose diet is primarily vegetarian.
Russian ambassador to Egypt Georgiy Borisenko has awarded the Dostoyevsky Medal to Anwar Ibrahim – the under-secretary of the Ministry of Culture and former head of the ministry’s Foreign Cultural Relations Department – for his work in translating Russian literature into Arabic.
The honouring ceremony took place at the headquarters of the Russian Embassy in Cairo on 6 March. It was attended by a delegation from the Egyptian Association of Graduates of Russian and Soviet Universities headed by Sherif Gad.
Ambassador Borisenko expressed appreciation for Ibrahim’s efforts in translating classic and contemporary Russian literature into Arabic, thereby promoting Russian culture.
“The Arab reader is lucky when he reads translated Russian literature through creative translators like Anwar Ibrahim,” Borisenko said.
Borisenko wished Ibrahim continued success in his literary career, which he described as part of the soft power between Russia and the Arab peoples.
The Dostoyevsky Medal was established by the Russian Writers Union to be awarded to translators on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who is one of the most iconic writers of the Russian literary canon.
For his part, Ibrahim said that “this honour is a new birth for me, and I am extremely proud of receiving the Dostoyevsky Medal.”
Toghan, Secretary-General of the Association of Graduates, affirmed that the award for Ibrahim is a tribute to all graduates of the association, especially since Anwar is the first Arab to receive the prestigious medal.
Dostoyevsky, who was born in 1821 in Moscow and died in 1881 in St. Petersburg, gave up an engineering career early in order to write.
In 1849, he was arrested for belonging to a radical discussion group and was sentenced to be shot. He was reprieved at the last moment and sentenced to four years of hard labour in Siberia, where he developed epilepsy and experienced a deepening of his religious faith.
Dostoyevsky’s novels are especially concerned with faith, suffering, and the meaning of life; they are famous for their psychological depth and insight and their near-prophetic treatment of issues in philosophy and politics.
By the end of his life, he was acclaimed as one of his country’s greatest writers, and his works had a profound influence on 20th-century literature.
