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ABU DHABI: Abu Dhabi University has advanced in the Quacquarelli Symonds World Rankings by Subject 2023 across a number of disciplines.
The improvement in its ranking for business and management studies was particularly impressive, as it climbed at least 250 places to be placed between 251 and 300 globally and second in the UAE, reflecting its academic excellence, the Emirates News Agency reported on Thursday.
The university earned a place on the social sciences and management list for the first time, ranking between 451 and 500 globally and third nationally. It also ranked between 451 and 500 globally and fifth in the UAE on the engineering — mechanical, aeronautical and manufacturing list, which was described as a significant achievement.
The rankings are compiled annually to help prospective students identify the leading universities in particular subjects. They are based on research citations and the results of global surveys of employers and academics.
The university’s chancellor, Prof. Ghassan Aouad, said that staff take pride in the university’s distinguished position as a leading academic institution that continuously upskills and grows generations through academic excellence.
“We are thrilled to witness the rapid advancement in the QS World Rankings by Subject year after year, reflecting the tireless efforts by every member of our workforce, including faculty and staff, to grow and develop our curricula,” said Aouad.
“We remain dedicated to providing our students and faculty with competitive opportunities that foster innovation and spur distinguished research to upskill their talent across various disciplines.”
The improved rankings were described as a testament to the university’s commitment to providing students with a world-class educational experience and diverse skills that align with job market requirements.
In 2022, the university achieved a five-star rating in the prestigious Quacquarelli Symonds Stars Rating, receiving the highest possible rating across the categories of teaching, employability, internationalization, research, online learning, facilities and inclusiveness.
The QS World University Rankings is one of the two international ratings that have received International Ranking Expert Group approval and is considered one of the most widely referenced indices of its kind.
UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council on Thursday was updated on the ongoing humanitarian effort in Syria, which all the members agreed has been exacerbated by the Feb. 6 earthquakes, but a less-than-rosy outlook was presented for the war-torn country.
There was stark division among diplomats on a political solution to the crisis in Syria caused by nearly 13 years of war and compounded by the February earthquakes, which has affected about 8.8 million people.
The session opened with updates from special UN envoys, each providing key details and statistics on the world body’s efforts to provide humanitarian aid and find common ground for a peaceful resolution to more than a decade of conflict. And while diplomats seemed united in their nations’ resolve to stick to a 2015 resolution to end the conflict, the usual East versus West political battlelines were laid bare during open discussion.
“Such a solution (for peace and extended humanitarian efforts) requires realism from all sides, and agreements and actions on key issues in Security Council Resolution No. 2254,” said Geir Pederson, special envoy of the secretary-general for Syria.
Resolution No. 2254 calls for, among other things, “the Syrian Government and opposition to engage in formal negotiations on a political transition process,” something that opposing sides currently seem unwilling to do.
Pederson went on to tell the assembled diplomats that violence in the country was on the rise, notably from Israeli strikes, attacks from Daesh, and increasing Syrian, Russian and US-led coalition strikes in response.
Diplomat after diplomat stressed their nations’ support for increased access to humanitarian aid. However, there were marked differences of opinion as to why that aid appeared to be lacking in parts of Syria, particularly in the north of the country.
The UAE’s representative Mohamed Issa Abu Shahab called for a national ceasefire to the conflict that has caused significant damage to Syria since 2015. He also stressed the need to end the “politicization” of humanitarian aid, saying that such political maneuvers ultimately result in more harm than good for the Syrian people.
Furthermore, Abu Shahab said the UAE has not seen signs in the current diplomatic process that point to increased stability in the region, and hoped to see “an Arab leadership role in all efforts” to achieve longstanding peace in the region.
“This includes establishing the necessary mechanisms and intensifying (efforts) among the Arab states to ensure the success of these endeavors,” he said.
More criticism of the seemingly lagging humanitarian response in Syria came from the Russian Federation diplomat, Vasily Nebenzya. He repeatedly referenced what he called “illegal provocation” by the US and its allies through what he classified as targeted sanctions against the Bashar Assad government.
Nebenzya accused the US and its allies of routinely engaging in “illegal” military actions, which were “in violation of Syria’s sovereignty and the sovereignty of neighboring Arab countries,” and that the absence of any action from the UN leadership to such actions “is very much alarming.”
In specifically addressing the humanitarian efforts in Syria, Nebenzya said the situation remains “exceedingly difficult, and it continues to deteriorate.”
“We cannot but note that the growing needs and problems endured by ordinary Syrians throughout the country have not prevented Western donors from seeking to politicize the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and they have been using this as a tool in pressuring Damascus, and they’ve also been undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria,” Nebenzya said.
The US’ Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis said America would not “normalize our relationship with Assad, and we have strongly discouraged others from doing so” because “Syria continues to radiate instability to the broader region.”
“We will not lift our sanctions on Assad or support reconstruction absent genuine, comprehensive, and enduring reforms and progress on the political process,” said DeLaurentis.
He went on to say that “the United States continues to reject any suggestion that humanitarian assistance is blocked by US sanctions.”
Nearly 7 million Syrians have been displaced since the start of the Syrian conflict, according to Lisa Doughten, resource mobilization director for the UN humanitarian coordination office. Of those, nearly 80 percent have been displaced for at least five years, she said.
Doughten said that years of conflict — coupled with economic pressures, dwindling public services and decaying critical infrastructure — have left Syrians “acutely vulnerable to shocks and stress.”
“Durable solutions are needed for this crisis, starting with an end to the conflict,” Doughten said.
RIYADH: Members of the so-called Trilateral Mechanism and the Quad on Friday welcomed the announcement by the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to extend the current ceasefire for an additional 72 hours and called for its full implementation.
“We also welcome their readiness to engage in dialogue toward establishing a more durable cessation of hostilities and ensuring unimpeded humanitarian access,” the two groups said in a joint statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency. The statement was also released by the US State Department.
“This initial phase of diplomacy to establish a process to achieve a permanent cessation of hostilities and humanitarian arrangements will contribute to action on development of a de-escalation plan as outlined in the April 20 African Union communique, which was endorsed by the League of Arab States, the European Union, the Troika, and other bilateral partners,” the statement said.
The Trilateral Mechanism comprises the African Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, and the United Nations. The Quad is made up of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the UK, and the US.
Fighting goes on
The joint statement comes amid reports of continuing violence in the capital Khartoum and the western region of Darfur despite the cease-fire agreements.
At least 512 civilians and combatants have been killed since the fighting broke out on April 15 between the Sudanese Armed Forces led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Another 4,200 people were reported injured as of the latest count.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the impoverished North African country. A total of 2,744 people, including 119 Saudis and people from 76 other countries, have been transported from Sudan to Saudi Arabia since the Kingdom’s evacuation process started on April 24.
On April 26, the largest evacuation was carried out, transporting 1,687 people from 58 nationalities from Port Sudan.
After toppling an internationally recognize civilian government in an October 2021 coup, Al-Burhan and Dagalo are now locked in a power struggle that is threatening to destabilize a fragile region.
The army on Wednesday said it agreed to a new three-day cease-fire through Sunday following one due to expire on Thursday night. On Thursday, the military reiterated it would extend the truce and said it would honor it unilaterally.
Responding for the first time, the RSF said on Thursday it too approved another 72-hour truce starting Friday.
The army said it controls most of Sudan’s regions and is defeating a large RSF deployment in Khartoum where some residential areas have turned into war zones.
Despite a partial lull in fighting since the first 72-hour cease-fire started, air strikes and anti-aircraft fire could be heard on Thursday in the capital and the nearby cities of Omdurman and Bahri, witnesses and Reuters journalists said.
Fighting has spread to the vast Darfur region, where conflict has simmered ever since civil war erupted two decades ago.
The Darfur Bar Association, a rights group, said at least 52 people had died in attacks by well-armed “militias” on residential neighborhoods in the city of El Geneina, as well as its main hospital, main market, government buildings and several shelters for internally displaced people.
Militiamen from nomadic Arab tribes entered El Geneina as the fighting between the RSF and army created a security vacuum in recent days, said one resident, who asked to withhold his name due to fear of retribution. They were met with armed members of the Masalit tribe, with clashes extending across the city,
(With Reuters)
LONDON: Documents uncovered by The Guardian have called into question critical evidence used by Iraqi authorities to imprison Australian engineer Robert Pether, sparking calls for his release.
Pether and his colleague Khaled Saad Zaghloul were sentenced to five years in prison in 2021 and fined $12 million following allegations that their engineering firm defrauded the Iraqi government during the construction of the Central Bank of Iraq’s new headquarters.
CME Consulting, Pether’s employer, was accused of continuing to charge the government for the work of a subcontractor, Meinhardt, despite telling Meinhardt to cease all operations on the project almost immediately after the two firms signed a contract.
According to testimony obtained by Guardian Australia, a Meinhardt employee told an Iraqi court in May 2021 that CME had told the subcontractor to halt work “three weeks after signing the contract.”
The Meinhardt employee’s testimony said: “We left the issue and the accused, Khaled Saad Zaghloul, did not contact us at all.
“(We) told (the Central Bank of Iraq) that the accused Khaled Saad Zaghloul informed us in 2017 that the project had stopped so we left the case and we did not send any of our engineers to the project site and did not provide any engineering consultations.”
However, email communication suggests that considerable contact between CME and Meinhardt lasted for months, contradicting what the court was told.
According to records obtained by The Guardian, CME and top Meinhardt personnel exchanged 51 emails between January and July 2018. The last of these was dated over six months after the contract.
From May to late June 2018, the Meinhardt employee who provided the prosecution testimony was copied into five CME-Meinhardt communications, six months after he claimed all interaction had halted.
Meanwhile, Pether, a father of three, alleged that a “confession” statement used against him was mistranslated by a biased employee of Iraq’s central bank before being handed to court.
Pether told The Guardian: “I recognized (my) translator as soon as he came into the room. He was known to me since 2016.
“Apart from facial recognition, he also has some distinguishing marks and characteristics.”
The Guardian has obtained contemporaneous court records confirming Pether brought this up during his criminal trial and complained that his translated statement was flawed and incorrect.
The record read: “The judge asked if there was an issue with the translator. Mr. Pether advised that the translator used by the investigation court was an employee of CBI. The judge then asked if he was biased. Mr. Pether said yes.”
Pether has now spent two years in a Baghdad detention cell after his arrest there in April 2021.
CME was preparing to withdraw personnel from Iraq when the central bank wrote a letter to its Dubai headquarters on Mar. 29, 2021, demanding a “meeting in Baghdad urgently to discuss and resolve the dispute according to the terms of the contract and not through illegal withdrawal.”
“They were lured into returning to Iraq and are detained under false pretenses and on fabricated charges,” the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found in a November 2021 report.
“A representative of the central bank allegedly stated at one stage that this would ‘all go away’ if CME made large financial concessions and if (Pether and Zaghloul) agreed to stay in Iraq and finish working on the project for free.”
The Iraqi central bank had not paid any CME invoices for seven months, demanding CME accept the loss and continue working for free to compensate for project delays that were caused by a second central bank contractor.
The Central Bank of Iraq, the Iraq Prime Minister’s Office, the Iraqi Foreign Affairs Ministry and embassy to Australia did not respond to detailed questions by the time of The Guardian article’s publication.
“I have asked the Australian government to work with their close partners and the Iraq government at the highest levels to help secure my release,” Pether said.
JEDDAH: Diplomatic efforts intensified on Thursday to extend the fragile ceasefire in Sudan as new fighting raged in the war-ravaged Darfur region.
Armed fighters rampaged through the Darfur city of Genena, shooting at each other and looting shops and homes. Residents said the fighting was dragging in tribal militias, tapping into longtime hatreds between the region’s Arab and African communities.
Fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked neighborhoods across Genena, driving families from their homes. The violence then spiraled with tribal fighters joining the battles. “The attacks come from all directions,” said Amany, a Genena resident. “All are fleeing.”
It was often unclear who was fighting whom, with a mix of RSF and tribal militias — some allies of the RSF, some opponents — all running rampant. The military had largely withdrawn to its barracks and residents were taking up arms to defend themselves, said Dr. Salah Tour of the Doctors’ Syndicate in West Darfur.
Fighters, some on motorcycles, roamed the streets, destroying and ransacking offices, shops and homes. “It’s a scorched earth war,” said Adam Haroun, a political activist in West Darfur. “The city is being destroyed.”
In the capital Khartoum and its neighboring city Omdurman, the ceasefire has brought a significant easing of fighting for the first time since the military and the RSF began fighting on April 15, turning residential neighborhoods into battlegrounds.
The relative calm has allowed foreign governments to bring thousands of people to safety. Saudi Arabia alone has rescued nearly 3,000 refugees by air and sea.
An East African initiative was pressing to extend the truce for another three days. The head of the military, Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, said he had accepted the proposal, but there was no response from his rival, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Thousands of people, mainly Sudanese, have been waiting at the border to cross north into Egypt. At the International University of Africa in Khartoum, where thousands of students are waiting to leave, there is no food, water or power. “Even as we sit here, almost everywhere you can hear gunshots. We are not safe here,” said Nigerian law student Umar Yusuf Yaru, 24.
At least 512 civilians and combatants have been killed since the fighting began, and another 4,200 injured.
BAGHDAD: More than 200 exhausted Iraqis evacuated from Sudan flew back to Baghdad on Thursday, with one saying he hadn’t seen the sun in 10 days because of the fighting.
Among the 234 people who were flown to Baghdad International Airport from Port Sudan were 16 Syrians, the foreign ministry said.
It was unclear whether they would stay in Iraq or return home.
“Overnight the war happened,” said 30-year-old Iraqi engineer Ahmed Al-Baldawi, his eyes red with fatigue.
“There was no food, no water and no electricity. For 10 days we didn’t see the sun.”
Evacuees arrived Thursday with stuffed backpacks and heavy suitcases, and one woman in a dark abaya carried her white cat in a plastic crate.
Another young woman burst into tears of relief as she left the airport.
The fighting broke out in Sudan on April 15 between Sudan’s army led by General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by his deputy turned rival, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
At least 512 people have been killed and 4,193 wounded, according to official figures in Sudan, although the real toll is likely to be much higher.
Many countries have been taking advantage of a tenuos truce to evacuate their citizens by air, land and sea, even though fighting has continued with air strikes in the capital Khartoum.
An evacuation of Iraqis organized in conjunction with the United Arab Emirates embassy in Khartoum had been due to take place on Sunday, Baldawi said.
“We were happy and got ready, but then they told us it was only for Emiratis,” Baldawi told AFP.
“So we stayed stuck in our apartments. We were devastated.”
Robay Ahmed, 24, said he had returned to Iraq with his parents, brother and sister, 16 years after the family settled in Sudan.
“It was catastrophic,” he said. “We kept away from the windows and we stayed low. There was a lot of fear.”
Ahmed said he had just completed his medical studies to become a dentist.
“I couldn’t even get my diploma,” he said.
Before they could board their plane at Port Sudan, the evacuees had to travel nearly 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) by bus from Khartoum, a 12-hour journey on bumpy roads.
“The road is exhausting, it’s nickname is the ‘road of death’,” said Ibrahim Jomaa, the father of a young girl.
“The bus was tossed from left to right — we thought it was going to overturn.”
But Jomaa was still full of praise for the Iraqi authorities who had managed to arrange their transport to safety.
He recalled that when the first shots rang out on April 15, “we thought the situation would calm down. People went to work and the kids went to school.
“But then suddenly there was artillery and rocket fire, and warplanes overhead,” he said.
“We were the last to leave our building. It’s empty now.”