KAPSARC, KSGAAL Launch 3rd Edition of KAPSARC Arabic Award

KAPSARC, KSGAAL Launch 3rd Edition of KAPSARC Arabic Award
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KAPSARC, KSGAAL Launch 3rd Edition of KAPSARC Arabic Award

KAPSARC, KSGAAL Launch 3rd Edition of KAPSARC Arabic Award

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC), in partnership with the King Salman Global Academy for Arabic Language (KSGAAL), announced on Sunday that submissions for this year's 3rd edition of the KAPSARC Arabic Award will be open until October 31.

The award aims to enrich Arabic content in energy, economics, and the environment. For the first time, it will target graduate students at Saudi universities and Saudi authors and translators residing in the Kingdom. It will also include professionals from the Saudi energy sector, continuing the focus from previous editions.

This year's award theme is environmental, social, and governance sustainability standards in the energy sector, a crucial topic both locally and globally. This theme aligns with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 goals and aims to support and bolster scientific writing in Arabic. The top winners in each category will receive cash prizes totaling SAR320,000.

President of KAPSARC Eng. Fahad Alajlan emphasized that the award supports Saudi Arabia's efforts to value and elevate the Arabic language, boosting its presence in various scientific and intellectual fields. It also aims to cement KAPSARC's role as a beacon of innovation and knowledge dissemination in energy, economics, and environmental studies.

KSGAAL Secretary-General Dr. Abdullah Al-Washmi stressed that the academy is pleased to recognize and promote the diverse efforts of Saudis in serving and elevating the Arabic language. This collaboration targets researchers, creators, and enthusiasts to acknowledge their achievements and encourage further innovation and usage of the language.

KAPSARC is a leading research and consulting center in energy economics and sustainability. It is dedicated to advancing the energy sector in Saudi Arabia and guiding global policies through evidence-based research and specialized consulting services.

KSGAAL was established to boost the role of the Arabic language regionally and globally, showcasing its value within the broader Arabic and Islamic cultural context and contributing to the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.



UN: Most World Heritage Sites at Risk of Drought or Flooding

Muslim devotees offer Eid al-Adha prayers inside the complex of the Taj Mahal in Agra on June 7, 2025. (Photo by Punit Lal / AFP)
Muslim devotees offer Eid al-Adha prayers inside the complex of the Taj Mahal in Agra on June 7, 2025. (Photo by Punit Lal / AFP)
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UN: Most World Heritage Sites at Risk of Drought or Flooding

Muslim devotees offer Eid al-Adha prayers inside the complex of the Taj Mahal in Agra on June 7, 2025. (Photo by Punit Lal / AFP)
Muslim devotees offer Eid al-Adha prayers inside the complex of the Taj Mahal in Agra on June 7, 2025. (Photo by Punit Lal / AFP)

Almost three quarters of the globe's cultural and natural heritage sites are threatened by too little or too much water, the UN's cultural agency said on Tuesday.

As a result of rising temperatures, extreme weather events including hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves have become more frequent and intense, scientists warn.

Seventy-three percent of all 1,172 non-marine sites on the UNESCO Heritage List are exposed to at least one severe water risk -- including water stress, drought, river flooding or coastal flooding, UNESCO said.

"Water stress is projected to intensify, most notably in regions like the Middle East and North Africa, parts of South Asia and northern China — posing long-term risks to ecosystems, cultural heritage, and the communities and tourism economies that depend on them," it added, according to AFP.

Cultural sites were most commonly threatened by water scarcity, while more than half of natural sites faced the risk of flooding from a nearby river, the UNESCO study showed.

In India, the Taj Mahal monument in Agra, for example, "faces water scarcity that is increasing pollution and depleting groundwater, both of which are damaging the mausoleum," the study said.

In the United State, "in 2022, a massive flood closed down all of Yellowstone National Park and cost over $20 million in infrastructure repairs to reopen."
The report gave four more examples.

Iraq's southern marshes -- the reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden -- "face extremely high water stress, where over 80 percent of the renewable supply is withdrawn to meet human demand", it added.

And competition for water is expected to increase in the marshes, where migratory birds live and inhabitants raise buffalo, as the region grows hotter in coming years.

On the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, the Victoria Falls -- originally called Mosi-oa-Tunya ("the smoke that thunders") before it was renamed by Scottish explorer David Livingstone -- has faced recurring drought and is sometimes reduced to a trickle.

In Peru, the pre-Colombian city of Chan Chan and its delicate 1,000-year-old adobe walls face an extremely high risk of river flooding, UNESCO said.

In China, rising sea levels driven in large part by climate change are leading to coastal flooding, which destroys mudlands where migratory waterbirds find food, it added.