English

SHAFAQNA – “When you witness that it is almost a year and a half now that Yemen has been under bombardment, is this a minor event? They are constantly bombarding a country. And they are not bombarding its military centers, rather they are bombarding its markets, hospitals, public squares and schools and the people’s houses and gatherings. This is not a minor event, rather it is a very grave crime. They do not understand what the month of Ramadan and a month of haraam are and they do not differentiate between children and adults. They have murdered so many children! Well, this is a grave crime as well which has unfortunately been committed by the Saudi govement. However, they have done so wit...

SHAFAQNA- Octopuses are notorious escape artists, able to squeeze and squish themselves into and around nearly any obstacle they encounter. In an ode to these crafty cephalopods, researchers have created the first completely soft-bodied robot, dubbed the “octobot.” The palm-sized machine’s exterior is made of silicone. And whereas other soft robots have had at least a few hard parts, such as batteries or wires, the octobot uses a small reservoir of hydrogen peroxide as fuel. When the hydrogen peroxide washes over flecks of platinum embedded within the octobot, the resulting chemical reaction produces gas that inflates and flexes the robot’s arms. As described online today in Nature, the gas ...

SHAFAQNA – Amal contacted me two years ago. She was 30 years old, a junior university professor, and she needed help. For four years her father had beaten her, locked her in her room, and threatened to stop her from working because she wanted to marry a non-Saudi professor. Now she wanted to explore a potential escape from the country of her birth, Saudi Arabia. For a Saudi woman, personal choice is a luxury. Her decisions must conform to her male guardian’s. Only women with agreeable guardians can control their lives. The rest must live with whatever limitations their guardians dictate. Amal consulted a lawyer, but it left her even more desperate. Courts approve less than five percent of al...

SHAFAQNA –Long held as a democratic model for the Middle East, Turkey is fast becoming ground zero for all things totalitarian, and neo-colonial, under the leadership of its ambitious President: Recep Erdogan. A despot in democratic clothing, Turkey’s strongman has played by America’s exceptional handbook, arguing national security to better deny, and reject its people’s civil liberties. Determined to impose himself as a neo-Ottoman monarch, Erdogan has behaved a waabe imperial power, a rogue state among other rogue states: Saudi Arabia, Qatar … Empowered by EU capitals on account Turkey stands a tentative ally against the axis of resistance against Zionism, and imperialism, Erdogan has been...