Saudis participate in the 25th World Scout Jamboree in South Korea
Scouts from the Kingdom, between the ages of 14 and 17, took part in the camp’s diverse activities
Saudi rangers and leaders also made their mark as part of the international service team as they worked at the development village
Updated 14 August 2023
Nada Hameed
JEDDAH: The Saudi Arabian Scouts Association participated in the 25th World Scout Jamboree, a 12-day event held in South Korea.
More than 43,000 youths, both male and female, represented 158 nations at the event which was held under the theme “Draw Your Dream.”
Scouts from the Kingdom, between the ages of 14 and 17, took part in the camp’s diverse activities, including adventure programs, educational initiatives, and the exploration of South Korea’s cultural heritage.
Saudi rangers and leaders also made their mark as part of the international service team as they worked at the development village.
Their tasks included extending hospitality in a traditional Saudi tent; showcasing the Kingdom’s offerings through multiple programs; participating in the international peace messengers board; curating the Saudi scout exhibition; and delivering traditional arts and dances.
Mubarak Al-Dosari, a trailblazing scout and the overseer of the SASA’s media committee, told Arab News that a primary objective of participation was to shed light on Saudi Arabia’s involvement in such events down the years, beginning with the camp in Greece in 1963.
He added: “The camp has the additional goal of showcasing the noteworthy initiatives undertaken by Saudi scouts in the realm of community service, as well as their significant contributions toward the attainment of sustainable development.”
Saudis took part in the mishlah scout initiative. This involved adorning the bisht — a masculine cloak worn over an ankle-length tunic, known as a thobe, in the Arab region — with an array of scout badges from local, regional, and international events.
The bisht, which is available in colors such as black, brown, gray, beige, and white, holds significant cultural importance as the most traditional Saudi attire. It also carries an air of prestige and is closely associated with royalty, opulence, and formal ceremonies. While it finds particular popularity in Saudi Arabia, it is also worn in other Gulf nations.
The bisht was adorned with 250 commemorative badges representing various scouting events. These feature intricate embroidery with an array of colors, images, and slogans.
Al-Dosari said: “This initiative holds significant importance as it chronicles scouting events and serves as a platform for friendly competition among scouts worldwide who avidly collect these keepsakes.
“This practice contributes to the preservation of scouting history and facilitates a deeper understanding of different cultures by exploring the elements encapsulated in these commemorative insignias — whether in writing, artwork, or photography.”
Visitors to the Saudi pavilion took the opportunity to wear the bisht and take photographs.
Those visiting the pavilion included Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf; Ahmad Alhendawi, the secretary-general and CEO of the World Organization of the Scout Movement; and Amr Hamdy, the regional director of the Arab Scout Region.
The bisht initiative has extended its influence across various countries worldwide. Saudi scout delegations participating in international events take the bisht with them, and this has occurred in countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, Armenia, and Morocco.
The camp also included a photo exhibition that told the story of the association’s participation at scout events over the years.
The Saudi pavilion in the Global Development Village boasted an exhibit that enabled visitors to identify the regions of the Kingdom and learn about present and future projects in each of them.
A closing ceremony was held at Seoul World Cup Stadium on Saturday with South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo in attendance.
The closing event, which was witnessed by more than 40,000 participants, guests, and organizers, featured a video showcase of the camp’s highlights.
Poland is set to host the 26th World Scout Jamboree in 2027.
Decoder
Mishlah scout initiative explained
It involves adorning the bisht — a masculine cloak worn over an ankle-length tunic, known as a thobe, in the Arab region — with an array of scout badges from local, regional, and international events. The bisht holds significant cultural importance as the most traditional Saudi attire and also carries an air of prestige and is closely associated with royalty, opulence, and formal ceremonies.
Kingdom arrests 11,465 residency violators in one week
Updated 11 sec ago
Arab News
Saudi authorities arrested 11,465 people in one week for breaching residency, work and border security regulations, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Saturday.
According to an official report, a total of 7,199 people were arrested for violations of residency laws, while 2,882 were held over illegal border crossing attempts and a further 1,384 for labor-related issues.
The report showed that among the 711 people arrested for trying to enter the Kingdom illegally, 52 percent were Yemeni, 45 percent Ethiopian, and 3 percent were of other nationalities.
A further 14 people were caught trying to cross into neighboring countries, and 15 were held for involvement in transporting and harboring violators.
So far, the authorities transferred 38,379 offenders to their respective diplomatic missions to obtain travel documents, while 1,704 were transferred to complete their travel reservations and 7,922 were deported.
The Saudi Ministry of Interior said that anyone found to be facilitating illegal entry to the Kingdom, including providing transportation and shelter, could face imprisonment for a maximum of 15 years, a fine of up to SR1 million ($260,000), or confiscation of vehicles and property.
Suspected violations can be reported on the toll-free number 911 in the Makkah and Riyadh regions, and 999 or 996 in other regions of the Kingdom.
RIYADH: The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center’s humanitarian efforts in Yemen continue with the provision of needed medical services in areas of the war-torn country.
KSrelief mobile medical and nutritional clinics provided services to 16,050 people in Al-Khokha, Yemen throughout August and September.
The internal medicine department examined 3,034 individuals, while the emergency clinic served 2,808 people.
Other clinics included epidemiology, pediatric and obstetrics.
Laboratory services were provided to 3,485 individuals, and medications were dispensed to 11,029 people.
Additionally, the Kidney Dialysis Center at Al-Ghaydah continued to provide medical services to residents in collaboration with KSrelief.
About 50 patients underwent 407 scheduled kidney dialysis sessions and five emergency sessions, while 88 individuals received medical examinations at the kidney disease clinic.
Al-Ja’dah Health Center clinics in Hajjah, meanwhile, provided treatment services to 8,106 people in August, with the support of KSrelief.
The emergency clinic received 3,728 individuals who underwent procedures such as blood transfusions and waste disposals.
These initiatives are part of the relief projects the Kingdom provides through its humanitarian arm.
UNESCO listing of Uruq Bani Ma’arid Reserve puts Saudi conservation efforts in the limelight
Decision seen as recognition of Kingdom’s commitment to protecting and maintaining natural ecosystems and cultural heritage
Inscription of the reserve on UNESCO World Heritage List comes more than 30 years after it was designated a protected zone
Updated 30 September 2023
Jonathan Gornall
LONDON: Uruq Bani Ma’arid Reserve has become the first natural site in Saudi Arabia to be added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, joining the six man-made heritage locations in the Kingdom that were previously inscribed.
In the words of Prince Badr bin Abdullah, the Saudi minister of culture, when he announced the organization’s on September 20, the addition of the site “contributes to highlighting the importance of natural heritage on a global scale and reflects the outstanding value of the reserve.”
But the Kingdom’s dedication to the protection of its natural environment is far from a new phenomenon. The recognition by UNESCO reflects a long-running commitment by Saudi Arabia to the preservation of a diverse and internationally important natural environment that stretches back almost four decades.
Spanning 12,765 square kilometers, Uruq Bani Ma’arid Reserve lies on the western edge of the Empty Quarter, the world’s largest continuous sand sea. The desert’s diverse topography creates a variety of wildlife habitats. (Supplied)
The listing of the Uruq Bani Ma’arid Reserve, on the edge of Rub Al-Khali, also known as the Empty Quarter, comes more than 30 years after the area was designated a protected zone.
But it was not the first such site afforded protected status. That honor went to Harrat Al-Harrah, a 13,775 square kilometer volcanic plateau in the north of the country, which was designated as a reserve in 1986 — 37 years ago.
Uruq Bani Ma’arid joined the list in 1992 and since then the flora and fauna of the reserve have been sensitively reintroduced and protected, a commitment that has transformed what was once a near-barren landscape of more than 12,500 square kilometers into a haven of diversity.
Uruq Bani Ma’arid Reserve contains habitats vital to the survival of many species. (Supplied)
In 1994, by which time 10 areas had been accorded protected status, a paper published in GeoJournal recorded the sorry state of Uruq Bani Ma’arid, an area that had once been rich in wildlife.
It was, for example, here that the Arabian oryx, by that time extinct in the wild, had last been sighted. In fact, as the paper — titled “Protected Areas in Saudi Arabia: Sustainable Use of Natural Resources” — noted, “Uruq Bani Ma’arid used to have many animal species that are now extinct.”
FASTFACTS
Uruq Bani Ma’arid has taken its place among the six other UNESCO World Heritage sites in Saudi Arabia.
Listing of Uruq Bani Ma’arid comes more than 30 years after the area was designated a protected zone.
Uruq Bani Ma’arid Reserve ecosystem embodies outstanding universal value and forms a unique and diverse landscape.
The problem, which had prompted the official intervention in the area in 1992, was that the age-old balance of sustainable use of natural resources had been upset by the rapid growth of the human population in the Kingdom and the incursion of roads and other infrastructure into once-remote areas, upsetting entire ecosystems in the process.
This picture titled "Hail covering sand dunes" was part of the Kingdom's application for the inclusion of "Uruq Bani Ma’arid" in the UNESCO World Heritage List. (Photo by Hamad Al Qahtani / National Center for Wildlife)
“People still remember vividly the diversity of fauna that the area had, and the tales of their hunting are still related,” Abdullah Alwelaie, of the Imam Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University’s Department of Geography in Riyadh, wrote in the 1994 GeoJournal paper.
“They are now all extinct in the wild in this area,” wrote Alwelaie, who offered some consolation when he noted that some wild species continued to hold out, including the Arabian wolf, sand fox, wild cat, sand cat, and honey badger.
Titled "Inter-dunal corridor during spring," this picture was part of the Kingdom's application for the inclusion of "Uruq Bani Ma’arid" in the UNESCO World Heritage List. (Photo by Muhammad Al Yousifi)
The slopes of Jabal Tuwayq in the west of the reserve were once home to ibex, while the wadis, desert plains and sand dunes had teemed with Arabian oryx, sand gazelle, and Arabian ostrich.
Almost 30 years later, many of these species and more besides are once again thriving in the reserve — and, indeed, across the other 13 reserves in Saudi Arabia. These 14 special landscapes account for about five percent of the Kingdom’s territory — a total area of more than 82,000 square kilometers.
Titled "Edge of Tuwayq Escarpment," this picture was part of the Kingdom's application for the inclusion of "Uruq Bani Ma’arid" in the UNESCO World Heritage List. (Photo by Tarek Abulhawa / National Center for Wildlife)
This, however, is just a start. Under the wide-ranging Saudi Green Initiative, a “whole-of-society initiative” launched in 2021 “to combat climate change, improve quality of life and protect the planet for future generations” as part of the Kingdom’s commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2060, Saudi Arabia has pledged to protect 30 percent of its terrestrial and marine landscape by 2030. The initiative is also committed to planting 10 billion trees across the country in the coming decades.
In the meantime, Uruq Bani Ma’arid has taken its place among the six other UNESCO World Heritage sites in Saudi Arabia. These include the Hegra Archaeological Site in AlUla (which was the first to be inscribed, in 2008), At-Turaif District in Diriyah (added to the list in 2010), Historic Jeddah, Gateway to Makkah (2014), Rock Art in the Hail Region (2015), Al-Ahsa Oasis — An Evolving Cultural Landscape (2018), and Ḥima Cultural Area (2021).
Al-Ahsa Oasis in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. (Ministry of Culture photo)
In January this year, Saudi Arabia was elected chair of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee by a unanimous vote among the 20 other member states that are party to the 1972 World Heritage Convention.
This month, Riyadh hosted the 45th annual session of the committee. It was, as the Kingdom’s permanent delegation to UNESCO tweeted, “a new chapter in our evolving history.”
The extent to which Saudi Arabia is focused on its natural and cultural heritage, which is apparent in its careful development of historic sites as AlUla and Diriyah as global tourism destinations, is also reflected in the list of 14 sites that have been registered on UNESCO’s “Tentative List” of locations that states intend to consider for nomination to the main list.
Saudi Arabia’s Uruq Bani Ma’arid Reserve was officially added to the UNESCO World Heritage List during the extended 45th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee held in Riyadh between Sept. 10-25. (Supplied)
Six of these sites were added to the Tentative List this year alone. They include a collection of prehistoric stone structures discovered at 10 locations across the Kingdom; ancient dams that tell the history of water management; a collection of five sites that together are representative of Saudi Arabia’s oil-industrial heritage, including the famous “Well Number 7” in Dammam, and Tapline, Aramco’s 1,648-kilometer Trans Arab Pipeline that between 1950 and 1976 carried oil from Qaisumah on the Gulf coast to the Mediterranean port of Sidon in Lebanon.
Two of the recently submitted sites, however, could join the Uruq Bani Ma’arid Reserve as natural sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
One is the “Bioclimatic Refugia of Western Arabia,” a series of mountain crests, woodlands and wetlands that harbor the surviving relics of ancient plant and animal species.
The other is “the rural cultural landscapes of the Sarawat Mountains,” a collection of seven landscapes along the southernmost stretch of the Hijaz Mountains, prized for their “unique geographic characteristics and dramatic mountain setting (which) offered a secure and defensible environment for human settlement, protected agriculture, and fortified trade halts.”
Thi Ain Heritage Village in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern Al-Baha province dates back hundreds of years. (Susan Baaghil/Saudi Tourism/File)
These projects feed directly into the ambitious aims of the SGI, the third annual forum of which will take place this year during the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference, COP28, at Expo City in Dubai on Dec. 4.
As Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Public Investment Fund and chairman of Saudi Aramco, said last year during the second SGI forum, held during COP27 in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh, the initiative represents “a turning point in green efforts” that has “already changed both the conversation and the facts, and promises a green future anchored around Saudi Arabia’s ambition to reach net-zero emissions by 2060, turning national ambitions into real actions that positively impact the world.”
On the ground in Saudi Arabia, that ambition is symbolized by the rapidly growing and spectacular list of protected environments, including its newly internationally recognized flagship, the Uruq Bani Ma’arid Reserve.
Saudi Arabia's heritage treasures
The five historic sites inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List tell a story of universal importance
Saudi Arabia, Gulf states condemn ‘treacherous’ attacks against worshippers in Pakistan
Saudi Arabia’s foreign affairs ministry condemns bombings as ‘cowardly terrorist attacks’
Updated 57 min 14 sec ago
Arab News
RIYADH: A number of Arab states condemned the “treacherous” terror attacks in Pakistan that killed as many as 57 people and shook the country on Friday.
The attack in Mastung was the deadliest, with over 50 people killed at a mosque where worshippers were commemorating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammed. The second attack, at a mosque in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killed five and trapped scores under rubble after the roof collapsed.
The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the bombings as “cowardly terrorist attacks,” and reaffirmed the Kingdom’s firm position in the renunciation of “violence and terrorism,” and expressed solidarity with Pakistanis.
The ministry statement offered Saudi Arabia’s sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished the injured a speedy recovery.
Similarly, the UAE condemned the criminal acts, and reiterated its permanent rejection of all forms of violence and terrorism “aimed at undermining security and stability in contravention of human values and principles.”
Kuwait also denounced the treacherous and deadly attacks on religious gatherings in the country and expressed its solidarity with the Pakistani nation in the measures it takes to preserve its internal security.
Bahrain issued a similar statement affirming its solidarity with Pakistan, sending condolences to the families of the deceased, and wishing the injured a speedy recovery.
Condemning the bombings, Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jassem Albudaiwi said that the “Council stands firmly against these actions, as they aim to destabilize security and stability and are inconsistent with humanitarian values and principles.”
#Statement | The Foreign Ministry expresses the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s strong condemnation and denunciation of the cowardly terrorist attacks that took place in several provinces of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which resulted in the killing and injury of many people. pic.twitter.com/mAiYvkFgd7
The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation strongly condemned the terror attacks. Its Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha renewed the “principled position of the OIC against all forms and manifestations of terrorism and expressed full support for Pakistan’s efforts against terrorism.”
Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, the secretary-general of the Muslim World League, denounced the acts “whose perpetrators were stripped of the values of religion and humanity.”
Al-Issa reiterated the stance of the MWL and Islamic world, rejecting and condemning violence and terrorism in all its forms, a statement from the organization said.
No group has as yet claimed responsibility for the attack but the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan denied it was involved.
The Daesh group is known for attacks in Pakistan and beyond on religious gatherings and on minorities.
Royal Commission for Riyadh City hosts Riyadh Expo 2030 seminar in Paris
Representatives from member countries of the Bureau International des Expositions and global experts attended the seminar
Princess Reema bint Bandar said Saudi Arabia is becoming the fastest-growing economy among the G20 countries
Updated 29 September 2023
Arab News
PARUS: The Royal Commission for Riyadh City and the Riyadh Expo 2030 team co-organized a seminar focusing on the expo’s sub-theme “Prosperity for All” on Thursday in Paris.
Representatives from member countries of the Bureau International des Expositions and global experts attended the seminar that was hosted by RCRC, the body responsible for Saudi Arabia’s bid to host World Expo 2030, according to a media statement.
The Kingdom’s Ambassador to the US Princess Reema bint Bandar said her country is becoming the fastest-growing economy among the G20 members, with non-oil government revenues having more than doubled.
“The Kingdom achieved the highest employment rate in its history, increased participation of women in the workforce, and registered a significant growth of small and medium enterprises, with nearly 40 percent of startup businesses owned by women,” she said.
Meanwhile, Fahad Al-Ruwaily, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to France, highlighted the Kingdom’s commitment to finding common solutions, stating: “As we seek to find shared solutions, today I want to pledge to you that Saudi Arabia is committed to working together as a partner with all nations to achieve our common aspirations. We are committed to utilizing Riyadh Expo 2030 to further catalyze (the) collaboration necessary to achieve our shared goals.
“We are committed to sharing the opportunities of building the expo with the whole world, and our vision of Riyadh Expo 2030 is as an expo ‘built by the world, for the world.’”
Al-Ruwaily highlighted the strength of cooperation and partnership between Saudi Arabia and France and the broad development it has witnessed in recent years.
The seminar was part of a series organized by the RCRC in Paris under the theme “Prosperity for All.”
It discussed ways to address inequalities in the world, with every nation contributing through the prism of its culture, context, and aspirations, ultimately working toward a more inclusive world that meets the needs of humanity.
