Always pause at the commas — it allows you to reflect

Always pause at the commas — it allows you to reflect

Always pause at the commas — it allows you to reflect
Aerial view of a rainforest under destruction in Amazonas state, Brazil, taken on August 20, 2024. (AFP/File)
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Turtles have been around for 200 million years — a testament to how well adapted to this planet they are. But over the past century of human progress, their numbers have dwindled.

Perhaps if turtles had developed the ability to fly, to run, or dash underwater, they would not be quite as endangered as they are today.

Indeed, we humans, who have been around for just 200,000 years, have discovered ways to fly through the air, speed over land, and propel ourselves underwater. Our adaptive minds have allowed us to evolve quickly, setting us apart from other species.

As humans leapfrogged ahead, we began to compete with nature itself. We drink water that has been converted from seawater, grow crops immune to pests and diseases, and study distant planets that could some day be a new home.

The pace of human innovation and progress appears to have no limits, making us feel as though we are perfectly in control. But as we rush to read the next sentence, we occasionally forget to pause for the commas.

Indeed, in grammar, commas allow us to consider more deeply what came before, and what may come after.

The Industrial Revolution gave us steam and combustion engines that powered mass production and connected whole continents. It brought electric lights to our homes and mass communications, allowing us to cooperate at a planetary level.

I am not saying we must become more like turtles. But I believe we must pause and take a step back to consider the impact of progress.

Hassan bin Youssef Yassin

Today we have supersonic planes, rockets carrying humans into space, life-extending medicines, and every comfort our ancestors could only have dreamed of.

But for all our great achievements, could we humans be the authors of our own destruction?

The fossil fuels we have burned, our rapacious exploitation of natural resources, the waste and pollution that are byproducts of our overconsumption, and the destabilization of systems that nature has relied on for hundreds of millions of years mean we not only risk destroying the world’s biodiversity, but also ourselves.

Had we learned to pause at every comma, we could have seen this coming. But we are in such a hurry that we race through every sentence.

The turtle, with its slow pace, stopping at every comma, has withstood the test of time because it is so well adapted, living in harmony with its ecosystem and perpetuating the slow march of its species. Only humans have managed to endanger its continuity.

I am not saying we must become more like turtles. But I believe we must pause and take a step back to consider the impact of progress that we have so far overlooked.

Progress means allowing human ingenuity to advance while respecting the world that sustains us. So let us pause at the commas, take some time to process events, and then move ahead more responsibly.

Hassan bin Youssef Yassin has worked closely with Saudi petroleum ministers, headed the Saudi Information Office in Washington, and served with the Arab League observer delegation to the UN.
 

 

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point of view

Saudi Arabia arrests 20,778 illegals in one week

Saudi police have arrested hundreds of illegals breaching country’s labor law. (SPA)
Saudi police have arrested hundreds of illegals breaching country’s labor law. (SPA)
Updated 37 sec ago
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Saudi Arabia arrests 20,778 illegals in one week

Saudi police have arrested hundreds of illegals breaching country’s labor law. (SPA)
  • 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: Saudi authorities arrested 20,778 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 11,523 people were arrested for violations of residency laws, while 5,711 were held over illegal border crossing attempts, and a further 3,544 for labor-related issues.

The report showed that among the 1,569 people arrested for trying to enter the Kingdom illegally, 73 percent were Ethiopian, 24 percent Yemeni, and 3 percent were of other nationalities.

A further 63 people were caught trying to cross into neighboring countries, and 15 were held for involvement in transporting and harboring violators.

The 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), as well as 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.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Understanding the Digital World’

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Updated 9 min 26 sec ago
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Understanding the Digital World’

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  • Kernighan touches on fundamental ideas from computer science and some of the inherent limitations of computers, and new sections in the book explore Python programming, big data, and much more

Author: BRIAN W. KERNIGHAN

In this updated edition of “Understanding the Digital World,” Brian Kernighan explains how computer hardware, software, and networks work.

Topics include how computers are built and how they compute; what programming is; how the Internet and web operate; and how all of these affect security, privacy, property, and other important social, political, and economic issues.

Kernighan touches on fundamental ideas from computer science and some of the inherent limitations of computers, and new sections in the book explore Python programming, big data, and much more.

 


Hungry Palestinians in northern Gaza search for food in rubble of destroyed homes

Hungry Palestinians in northern Gaza search for food in rubble of destroyed homes
Updated 52 min 56 sec ago
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Hungry Palestinians in northern Gaza search for food in rubble of destroyed homes

Hungry Palestinians in northern Gaza search for food in rubble of destroyed homes
  • The US says Israel must allow a minimum of 350 trucks a day carrying food and other supplies. Israel has fallen far short

JERUSALEM: With virtually no food allowed into the northernmost part of Gaza for the past month, tens of thousands of Palestinians under Israeli siege are rationing their last lentils and flour to survive.
As bombardment pounds around them, some say they risk their lives by venturing out in search of cans of food in the rubble of destroyed homes.
Thousands have staggered out of the area, hungry and thin, into Gaza City, where they find the situation a little better.
One hospital reports seeing thousands of children suffering from malnutrition. A nutritionist said she treated a pregnant woman wasting away at just 40 kilograms (88 pounds).
“We are being starved to force us to leave our homes,” said Mohammed Arqouq, whose family of eight is determined to stay in the north, weathering Israel’s siege. “We will die here in our homes.”
Medical workers warn that hunger is spiraling to dire proportions under a monthlong siege on northern Gaza by the Israeli military, which has been waging a fierce campaign since the beginning of October.
The military has severed the area with checkpoints, ordering residents to leave.
Many Palestinians fear Israel aims to depopulate the north long term.
On Friday, experts from a panel that monitors food security said famine is imminent in the north or may already be happening.
The growing desperation comes as the deadline approaches next week for a 30-day request the administration of President Joe Biden gave Israel: raise the level of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on US military funding.
The US says Israel must allow a minimum of 350 trucks a day carrying food and other supplies. Israel has fallen far short.
In October, 57 trucks a day entered Gaza on average, according to figures from Israel’s military agency overseeing aid entry, known as COGAT. In the first week of November, the average was 81 a day.
The UN puts the number even lower — 37 trucks daily since the beginning of October.

It says Israeli military operations and general lawlessness often prevent it from collecting supplies, leaving hundreds of truckloads stranded at the border.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Israel had made some progress by announcing the opening of a new crossing into central Gaza and approving new delivery routes.
But he said Israel must do more.
“It’s not just sufficient to open new roads if more humanitarian assistance isn’t going through those roads,” he said.
Israeli forces have been hammering the towns of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, and Jabaliya refugee camp.
Witnesses report intense fighting between troops and militants.
A trickle of food has reached Gaza City.
However, as of Thursday, nothing entered the towns farther north for 30 days, even as an estimated 70,000 people remain there, said Louise Wateridge, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, speaking from Gaza City.
The government acknowledged in late October that it hadn’t allowed aid into Jabaliya because of military “operational constraints” in response to a petition by Israeli human rights groups. On Saturday, COGAT said it allowed 11 trucks of food and supplies into Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya. But Alia Zaki, a spokeswoman for the WFP, said Israeli troops at a checkpoint forced the convoy to unload the food before it could reach shelters in Beit Hanoun.
It was not clear what then happened to the supplies.
Palestinians in the north described a desperate daily struggle to find food, water, and safety as strike-level buildings, sometimes killing whole families.
Arqouq said he goes out at night to search bombed-out buildings: “Sometimes you find a half-empty package of flour, canned food, and lentils.”
He said his family relies on help from others sheltering at a Jabaliya school, but their food is also running low.
“We are like dogs and cats searching for their food in the rubble,” said Um Saber, a widow.
She said she and her six children had to flee a school-turned-shelter in Beit Lahiya when Israel struck it. Now they live in her father-in-law’s home, stretching meager supplies of lentils and pasta with 40 others, mostly women and children.
Ahmed Abu Awda, a 28-year-old father of three living with 25 relatives in a Jabaliya house, said they have a daily meal of lentils with bread, rationing to ensure children eat.
“Sometimes we don’t eat at all,” he said.
Lubna, a 38-year-old mother of five, left food behind when fleeing as strikes and drone fire pummeled the street in Jabaliya.
“We got out by a miracle,” she said from Beit Lahiya, where they’re staying.
Her husband scavenged flour from destroyed homes after Israeli forces withdrew around nearby Kamal Adwan hospital, she said. It’s moldy, she said, so they sift it first.
Her young daughter, Selina, is visibly gaunt and bony, Lubna said.
The offensive has raised fears among Palestinians that Israel seeks to empty northern Gaza and hold it long-term under a surrender-or-starve plan proposed by former generals.
Witnesses report Israeli troops going building to building, forcing people to leave toward Gaza City.
On Thursday, the Israeli military ordered new evacuations from several Gaza City neighborhoods, raising the possibility of a ground assault there.
The UN said some 14,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering there.
Food and supplies are also stretched for the several hundred thousand people in Gaza City.
Much of the city has been flattened by months of Israeli bombardment and shelling.
Dr. Rana Soboh, a nutrition specialist at Gaza City’s Patient Friend Benevolent Hospital, said she sees 350 cases of moderate to severe acute malnutrition daily, most from the north and also from Gaza City.
“The bone of their chest is showing, the eyes are protruding,” she said, and many have trouble concentrating.
“You repeat something several times so they can understand what we are saying.”
She cited a 32-year-old woman shedding weight in her third month of pregnancy — when they put her on the scale, she weighed only 40 kg.
“We are suffering, facing the ghost of famine hovering over Gaza,” Soboh said.
Even before the siege in the north, the Patient Friend hospital saw a flood of children suffering from malnutrition — more than 4,780 in September compared with 1,100 in July, said Dr. Ahmad Eskiek, who oversees hospital operations.
Soboh said staff get calls from Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya pleading for help: “What can we do? We have nothing.”
She had worked at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north but fled with her family to Gaza City. Now, they stay with 22 people in her uncle’s two-bedroom apartment.
On Thursday, she had had a morsel of bread for breakfast and later a meal of yellow lentils.
As winter rains near, new arrivals set up tents wherever they can.
Some 1,500 people are in a UN school already heavily damaged in strikes that “could collapse at any moment,” UNRWA spokesperson Wateridge said.
With toilets destroyed, people try to set aside a classroom corner to use, leaving waste “streaming down the walls of the school,” she said.
She said that others in Gaza City move into the rubble of buildings, draping tarps between layers of collapsed concrete.
“It’s like the carcass of a city,” she said.

 


Child, pregnant woman among 7 killed in Israeli strikes on Tyre

A resident checks the site of an Israeli airstrike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024. (AP)
A resident checks the site of an Israeli airstrike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024. (AP)
Updated 57 min 37 sec ago
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Child, pregnant woman among 7 killed in Israeli strikes on Tyre

A resident checks the site of an Israeli airstrike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024. (AP)
  • PM Mikati gains support in efforts to end Lebanon conflict on eve of OIC summit
  • Israel accused of ‘scorched-earth policy’ after 22 border towns devastated

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that seven people, including a child and a pregnant woman, were killed and 46 others injured in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre the previous day, with rescuers still searching for those missing under the rubble.

Repeated airstrikes on the city’s neighborhoods brought down buildings, trapping residents.

The strikes hampered civil defense rescue efforts during the night. Rescuers resumed work early on Saturday in search of the missing.

Israeli airstrikes on the city of Nabatieh devastated one of the country’s most important heritage homes owned by the late former minister Rafiq Shaheen.

Another heritage home belonging to Kamal Daher, which previously served as the headquarters for the Cultural Council of South Lebanon, was also destroyed.

Airstrikes targeting the western Bekaa region killed six people.

Hezbollah continued its military operations, and Israeli media reported in the afternoon that several rockets landed in Metula, damaging a house.

The group said it targeted a military gathering on the border of the settlement.

Airstrikes on the south continued along with Hezbollah’s responses.

Mohammed Shamseddine, a researcher from Information International, said that Israel had so far destroyed 22 border towns out of 29 locations along the 120 km front stretching from Ras Al-Naqoura in the west, through the western and central sectors, and reaching the Shebaa farms in the east, near the Syrian border.

Shamseddine accused Israel of “adopting a scorched-earth policy in these areas.”

He said Israel was “destroying everything and leaving no signs of life to prevent residents from returning to any potential settlement in the future.”

Shamseddine estimated that up to 44,000 housing units had been destroyed, with the cost of reconstruction reaching $4.2 billion.

Hostilities continued as the Supreme Islamic Shariah Council emphasized Lebanon’s need to “restore its decision, role, power, and status, and implement the constitution and the Taif agreement.”

The council said that it stands by “caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s efforts to overcome the ordeal faced by Lebanon and contain the consequences of the Israeli aggression against the country.”

The council’s stance came on the eve of Miktai’s departure for Riyadh to take part in the extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Saudi Arabia is convening the talks to address Israel’s aggression in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as the resulting devastation.

The Shariah Council, which includes all Sunni segments, called for “the need to live within the state, accept the idea of the state, respect its laws and constitution, and subject oneself to its authority.”

The council said that “outside the state, we are conflicting groups, communities, and tribes,” adding that “the state of the constitution, institutions, and human dignity can save Lebanon and restore its economic stability, advancement, and prosperity.”

The council, led by Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian, met on Saturday with Mikati.

It called on the UN Security Council to “secure an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, compel Israel to implement the ceasefire, and apply the UN Charter, which calls for pacific settlement of disputes.”

It added that Israel no longer abided by the charter, and should lose its UN membership.

The Shariah Council urged “the Security Council to answer the Lebanese state’s call and immediately implement UN Resolution 1701 in full, thereby ensuring the end of the war and enabling the Lebanese armed forces to exercise their national right to defend Lebanon, while providing them with all the capabilities and possibilities to fulfill this role.”

The council criticized Hezbollah’s support indirectly, saying that “what has happened and is still happening now is a challenging test that we hope we have learned from, as it has led to the destruction of the whole country.”

The council urged “the state, with all its institutions, and all Lebanese to support the displaced people, provide them with resilience and health care means, and preserve civil peace.”

Israeli hostilities against Lebanon escalated in the past 24 hours.

A video featuring several Israeli soldiers invading houses in southern Lebanon was shared on social media, prompting widespread anger among Lebanese.

Israeli media reported on Saturday afternoon that explosions were heard after sirens sounded in the Krayot and Western Galilee, adding that Hezbollah fired 10 rockets targeting Nahariya, Acre, and Krayot.

Hezbollah said that it shot down a Hermes 450 drone with a surface-to-air missile over Deir Seriane and that Israeli warplanes attacked the town.

The southern suburbs of Beirut and the southern region experienced intense Israeli assaults from Friday night into early Saturday.

For two hours, 14 airstrikes targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Targeted locations included Hadath, Burj Al-Barajneh, Haret Hreik, and the Al-Jamous neighborhood, with operations extending to the area surrounding the Lebanese University building in Hadath.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said that the “airstrikes, guided by precise intelligence from the military intelligence agency, targeted command centers, a weapons production site, and other infrastructure belonging to the terrorist organization Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut.”

The assertion made by the Israeli army that it avoids targeting civilians by issuing prior evacuation warnings did not hold for the southern region, particularly in Tyre.

 

 


Thousands of Spaniards demand the resignation of Valencia leader for bungling flood response

Thousands of Spaniards demand the resignation of Valencia leader for bungling flood response
Updated 09 November 2024
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Thousands of Spaniards demand the resignation of Valencia leader for bungling flood response

Thousands of Spaniards demand the resignation of Valencia leader for bungling flood response
  • Regional leader Carlos Mazón is under immense pressure after his administration failed to issue flood alerts to citizens’ cellphones until hours after the flooding started
  • Many marchers held up homemade signs or chanted “Mazón Resign!” Others carried signs with messages like “You Killed Us!”

VALENCIA, Spain: Thousands of Spaniards marched in the eastern city of Valencia on Saturday to demand the resignation of the regional president in charge of the emergency response to last week’s catastrophic floods that left more than 200 dead and others missing.
Some protesters clashed with riot police in front of Valencia’s city hall, where the protesters started their march to the seat of the regional government. Police used batons to beat them back.
Regional leader Carlos Mazón is under immense pressure after his administration failed to issue flood alerts to citizens’ cellphones until hours after the flooding started on the night of Oct. 29.
Many marchers held up homemade signs or chanted “Mazón Resign!” Others carried signs with messages like “You Killed Us!”
Mazón, of the conservative Popular Party, is also being criticized for what people perceive as the slow and chaotic response to the natural disaster. Thousands of volunteers were the first boots on the ground in many of the hardest hit areas on Valencia’s southern outskirts. It took days for officials to mobilize the thousands of police reinforcements and soldiers that the regional government asked central authorities to send in.
In Spain, regional governments are charged with handling civil protection and can ask the national government in Madrid, led by the Socialists, for extra resources.
Mazón has defended his handling of the crisis saying that its magnitude was unforeseeable and that his administration didn’t receive sufficient warnings from central authorities.
But Spain’s weather agency issued a red alert, the highest level of warning, for bad weather as early as 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning as the disaster loomed.
Some communities were flooded by 6 p.m. It took until after 8 p.m. for Mazón’s administration to send out alerts to people’s cellphones.
The death toll stood at 220 victims on Saturday, with 212 coming in the eastern Valencia region, as the search for bodies goes on.
Thousands more lost their homes and streets are still covered in mud and debris 11 days since the arrival of a tsunami-like wave following a record deluge.