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Lebanese Hoda Barakat Wins Arab Booker Prize

Lebanese writer Hoda Barakat, photographed in 2015 after she was short listed for the Man Booker International Prize (AFP Photo/ADRIAN DENNIS)
Lebanese writer Hoda Barakat, photographed in 2015 after she was short listed for the Man Booker International Prize (AFP Photo/ADRIAN DENNIS)
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Lebanese Hoda Barakat Wins Arab Booker Prize

Lebanese writer Hoda Barakat, photographed in 2015 after she was short listed for the Man Booker International Prize (AFP Photo/ADRIAN DENNIS)
Lebanese writer Hoda Barakat, photographed in 2015 after she was short listed for the Man Booker International Prize (AFP Photo/ADRIAN DENNIS)

Lebanese author Hoda Barakat won the Booker International Prize for Arabic fiction for her novel “The Night Mail”.

In a statement, the Chair of Judges, Charafdine Majdouline, said: "The Night Mail is a highly accomplished novel that stands out for its condensed economy of language, narrative structure, and capacity to convey the inner workings of human beings. By choosing to use techniques well-known in novel writing, Barakat faced a challenge, but she succeeded in creatively innovating within the tradition to successfully convince the reader.”

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) is the Arab world’s prestigious literary prize.

Barakat received her award at a ceremony held at the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi.

A summary published on IPAF website said “The Night Mail” tells the stories of letter writers.

“The letters are lost, like the people who have penned them, but each is linked to another and their fates are woven together, like those of their owners. The writers are foreigners, either immigrants by choice or forced by circumstance to leave their countries; exiled and homeless, orphans of their countries with fractured destinies,” it said.

“The novel’s realm is — like the times we live in — one of deep questioning and ambiguity, where boundaries have been erased, and old places and homes lost forever,” it added.

Barakat is a Lebanese novelist, who was born in Beirut in 1952. She has worked in teaching and journalism and currently lives in France. She has published six novels, two plays, a book of short stories and a book of memoirs.

Barakat received the ‘Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ in 2002 and the ‘Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite National’ in 2008. Her novels include: The Stone of Laughter (1990), Disciples of Passion (1993), The Tiller of Waters (2000) which won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in that year, and My Master and my Lover (2004). Her fifth novel, The Kingdom of This Earth (2012), reached the IPAF longlist in 2013. In 2015, she was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize, given (at that time) every two years to honor a writer’s overall contribution to fiction on the world stage.

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Varieties

Scientists Find New Species of Dragonfly, Grasshopper and a Fluorescent Spider

A crowned crab spider that fluoresces under UV light, discovered during a scientific expedition to Angola's remote Lisima plateau, is pictured in this handout image obtained by Reuters on June 3, 2026. (The Wilderness Project/Handout via Reuters)
A crowned crab spider that fluoresces under UV light, discovered during a scientific expedition to Angola's remote Lisima plateau, is pictured in this handout image obtained by Reuters on June 3, 2026. (The Wilderness Project/Handout via Reuters)
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Scientists Find New Species of Dragonfly, Grasshopper and a Fluorescent Spider

A crowned crab spider that fluoresces under UV light, discovered during a scientific expedition to Angola's remote Lisima plateau, is pictured in this handout image obtained by Reuters on June 3, 2026. (The Wilderness Project/Handout via Reuters)
A crowned crab spider that fluoresces under UV light, discovered during a scientific expedition to Angola's remote Lisima plateau, is pictured in this handout image obtained by Reuters on June 3, 2026. (The Wilderness Project/Handout via Reuters)

Wildlife ‌experts found eight new species of dragonfly, three unknown grasshoppers and some 60 new butterflies and moths in vivid hues during a trip to Angola's Lisima plateau in February, a conservation group said on Wednesday.

The Wilderness Project visited the waters that flow through the plateau and which feed four of Africa's major rivers: the Congo, Okavango, Zambezi and Cuanza.

New species included an ‌armored, predatory ‌cricket, a previously undescribed species of ‌copper ⁠caterpillar and its adult ⁠butterfly, and a crowned crab spider that fluoresces under ultraviolet light.

Experts also found a new blood orange-hued species of ladybird orb-web spider which mimics ladybirds in signaling to predators with a bright color - normally a darker red - ⁠that it is too bitter or toxic.

"The ‌armored crickets are ‌very cool ... very fierce-looking," expedition leader Rob Taylor told ‌Reuters. "As a defense mechanism, they can actually squirt ‌fluid onto whoever's trying to attack them."

A new species of an adult butterfly, discovered during a scientific expedition to Angola's remote Lisima plateau, is pictured in this handout image obtained by Reuters on June 3, 2026. (The Wilderness Project/Handout via Reuters)

Scientists the world over are frantically trying to record species as they reckon with a global ecological crisis that ‌has put a million plant and animal species on the brink of extinction. ⁠

They ⁠estimate there are 8.7 million species in the world, of which science has identified only 1.5 million.

Many are fast disappearing because of human activity, with more than 800 animal species going extinct since around 1500.

Taylor said wildlife in the Lisima plateau was threatened by "tree-felling, deforestation and ... the artisanal diamond mining industry," as well as by slash-and-burn agriculture, which razes natural forests to use the soil for planting, only to see the nutrients wash away.

Varieties

Storm Jangmi Dumps Torrential Rain on Tokyo

People commute in heavy rain brought by severe tropical storm Jangmi in Tokyo on June 3, 2026. (AFP)
People commute in heavy rain brought by severe tropical storm Jangmi in Tokyo on June 3, 2026. (AFP)
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Storm Jangmi Dumps Torrential Rain on Tokyo

People commute in heavy rain brought by severe tropical storm Jangmi in Tokyo on June 3, 2026. (AFP)
People commute in heavy rain brought by severe tropical storm Jangmi in Tokyo on June 3, 2026. (AFP)

A severe tropical storm brought torrential rain to Tokyo on Wednesday, swelling rivers, grounding flights and sparking calls to evacuate for hundreds of thousands of people across wide swathes of Japan.

Many trains were largely deserted in and around Tokyo, as commuters in the usually bustling megacity stayed home to escape Storm Jangmi's deluge.

Some railway services were delayed or cancelled in the country whose public transport system prides itself on on-the-dot punctuality.

The storm also forced school closures.

As Jangmi rolled in from southern Japan, authorities urged around 370,000 people from Tokyo to western Shikoku island to evacuate.

"Please continue to pay close attention to evacuation information from your local authorities, and if you feel even the slightest sense of danger, do not hesitate to take early action to protect your life," top government spokesman Minoru Kihara told a news conference Wednesday.

The storm has flooded streets, toppled trees, triggered landslides and closed some expressways, Kihara said, adding "approximately 60,000" power outages have been confirmed.

"Even in areas where the rain has subsided, the ground may have been loosened by previous rainfall and the risk of landslides remains," he cautioned.

Japan's two biggest airlines All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines cancelled a combined 616 flights -- including 92 international flights -- scheduled for Wednesday.

At Tokyo's Haneda airport, large screens showed most international flights bound for cities like Sydney, Singapore, London and Bangkok had been either cancelled or delayed, an AFP reporter saw.

Torrential rain filled rivers in western and eastern Japan including in the Tokyo area, although the Japan Meteorological Agency lifted many of the flood warnings in place earlier in the day.

Around 0645 GMT, the storm appeared to be moving away from Japan, on an eastern trajectory towards the Pacific Ocean.

On Tuesday, the storm injured 15 people in the south of the country.

Varieties

Indian Stars Push to End Elephants in Bollywood

A mahout rides an elephant along a street in Ahmedabad on May 6, 2026. (Photo by Shammi MEHRA / AFP)
A mahout rides an elephant along a street in Ahmedabad on May 6, 2026. (Photo by Shammi MEHRA / AFP)
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Indian Stars Push to End Elephants in Bollywood

A mahout rides an elephant along a street in Ahmedabad on May 6, 2026. (Photo by Shammi MEHRA / AFP)
A mahout rides an elephant along a street in Ahmedabad on May 6, 2026. (Photo by Shammi MEHRA / AFP)

Bollywood stars are campaigning to end the use of elephants in Indian films, saying that life-size robot replicas and AI-generated images do the job without cruelty.

Top directors, producers and actors have backed the campaign by animal rights group PETA India, which this month highlighted how the rise of slick AI images provide even less reason to use real animals.

"Elephants shouldn't suffer for our entertainment," said A-list actor and producer John Abraham, describing why he and more than two dozen stars were supporting the campaign.

"With today's technology, we can bring elephants to life beautifully through CGI (computer-generated imagery) and mechanical artistry, without confinement or cruelty."

There are fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund -- the majority in India, with others in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

There are more than 2,600 captive elephants in India, according to environment ministry estimates. They are used for tourism, entertainment, and in temples.

PETA told AFP captive elephants are "separated from their families, kept near-constantly chained and are controlled with weapons".

India's Animal Welfare Board must give permission for elephants to be used in films.

The number of real elephants being used have dropped dramatically since its 2021 order that it was "advisable" that special effects or animatronics be prioritized "to prevent unnecessary pain and suffering to animals".

Now PETA campaigners are highlighting how AI-generated images, showcased in a social media campaign this month, provide increasingly lifelike images.

"Elephants are highly intelligent, emotional animals who require living free in lush jungle homes for their mental and physical wellbeing," it said.

"In contrast, elephants used in films, shows and advertisements face extreme loneliness and severe cruelties."

Campaigners point to the use of CGI imagery by Richie Mehta in the 2024 series "Poacher", a Malayalam-language crime drama about ivory smuggling, and to a robotic elephant with flapping ears used in a dance routine for an advertisement by clothing company Ramraj Cotton.

Other high-profile hits who used CGI for elephants include 2020 historical action movie "Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior" and the 2006 superhero film "Krrish".

That compares to times past when movies, such as 1971 hit "Haathi Mere Saathi" used multiple real elephants -- alongside tigers and lions -- in dance scenes.

Last month, the Malayalam-language film "Kattalan" -- about ivory-smuggling gangsters -- featured real elephants, producers told Indian media.

PETA has long campaigned for the end of elephants in Hindu temple ceremonies, where the animals are paraded through packed crowds with flashing lights, thumping drums and ear-splitting music.

It has donated more than 25 life-size robot elephants -- made of fibreglass and rubber -- to temples across India.

The models are motorised, so that they flap their ears, move tails and even spray water from rubber trunks.

In May, PETA and Shriya Saran -- one of the stars of 2022 hit "RRR", which won the Oscar for best original song -- gifted one to a Hindu temple in Kanpur, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Many followers of the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesh see the animals as sacred, and they have traditionally played an important role in ceremonies.

Saran said the mechanical version would "allow the temple to continue age-old traditions while allowing elephants, earthly representatives of Lord Ganesha, to thrive in their natural habitats".

Other Bollywood names, on a list of more than two dozen stars, include Richa Chadha, Farah Khan and Dia Mirza.

"Good cinema requires empathy," said actor Pooja Bhatt. "We can tell wonderful stories on screen without exploiting animals."