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Israel City's Bid to Honor Egypt’s Iconic Umm Kulthum Stirs Debate

Undated photo of singer Oum Kalthoum in concert in Cairo. (AFP)
Undated photo of singer Oum Kalthoum in concert in Cairo. (AFP)
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Israel City's Bid to Honor Egypt’s Iconic Umm Kulthum Stirs Debate

Undated photo of singer Oum Kalthoum in concert in Cairo. (AFP)
Undated photo of singer Oum Kalthoum in concert in Cairo. (AFP)

She was one of the Arab world's most revered singers, praised by Bob Dylan and sampled by Beyonce: the late Egyptian legend Umm Kulthum seems worthy of having a street named in her honor.

But when that street is in Israel, a country she condemned while championing the Palestinian cause, a decision to honor the vocalist branded "the Star of the East," has triggered controversy.

Haifa -- Israel's third largest city, where roughly 10 percent of its 300,000 residents are Arab -- decided earlier this month to honor the woman whose deep, resonant voice was also adored by many Jews.

The decision highlights the diversity of the city, "which represents a model of co-existence between Arabs and Jews," Haifa town council head Einat Kalisch-Rotem said.

Umm Kulthum, who died aged 76 in 1975, performed in Haifa in the 1930s when the city was in British-mandated Palestine before Israel's creation in 1948.

Haifa councilor Raja Zaatreh said honoring Umm Kulthum is an appropriate way of recognizing the "presence and roots" of Israel's Arab community, which regularly faces discrimination.

'Shameful'?

After the Umm Kulthum honor was announced, Haifa newspaper Kol Po published a front page black-and-white picture of the singer with some of her lyrics scrawled across the image.

"Now I have a gun, take me in, Palestine, with you," were the printed lines from one of her songs dedicated to the Palestinians.

During the 1967 Six Day War, the artist sometimes dubbed Egypt's "Fourth Pyramid", also performed a song that willed her nation to victory against Israel.

Writing in Kol Po, a lawmaker from the right-wing Likud party, Ariel Kallner, said he was "saddened" by Haifa's decision to honor a woman "who called for the destruction of the Jewish state".

He vowed to find ways to block the street-naming.

And Prime Minister Benjamin's Netanyahu son Yair, a vocal and often bombastic social media commentator, tweeted that the honor was "shameful and crazy".

Despite Netanyahu's outrage, his father's government supported a festival in 2013 that included a night devoted to Umm Kulthum's work.

And Haifa is not the first Israeli city to honor "the Lady of Cairo".

In 2011, the mainly Arab Beit Hanina neighborhood in east Jerusalem named a street after her and a similar move is planned in the central city of Ramla.

But as the trend has spread, Jewish outrage appears to have grown.

Writing in the Israel Hayom newspaper, commentator Eldad Beck sounded an alarm about the string of Umm Kulthum honours.

"It started with Jerusalem, then Ramla and has ended up in Haifa," Beck wrote, blasting the push "to commemorate one of the biggest and most influential enemies of Israel, who wanted to annihilate the state".

Jewish fans

Reducing the controversy surrounding Umm Kulthum to tensions between Arabs and Jews underestimates her wide array of devotees, said Jonathan Mandel, an Arabic language and culture researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

He stressed that Mizrahi Jews, meaning those from North Africa and the Middle East, are equally attached to her music.

Israeli musician Ariel Cohen said that some Jews with Arab roots "grew up with Umm Kulthum," and noted that one of her most famous songs, "Enta Omri" -- the tune sampled by Beyonce -- was translated into Hebrew.

"Umm Kulthum is not an enemy," Cohen said.

Even if she sang patriotic songs during conflict between Egypt and Israel before the neighbors signed a 1979 peace deal, "it is natural for singers to sing patriotic songs in times of war," Cohen added.

Cohen told AFP that the former chief Sephardic rabbi, Iraqi-born Ovadia Yosef, used to play Umm Kulthum's music during parties and would sing along to her Arabic lyrics.

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Varieties

Fossils of New Species of Huge Dinosaur Unearthed in Niger

Paleontologist Paul Sereno poses in his Fossil Lab at the University of Chicago with a reconstructed skull of the dinosaur Spinosaurus mirabilis. The photograph was released by the University of Chicago on February 19, 2026. Keith Ladzinski/Handout via REUTERS
Paleontologist Paul Sereno poses in his Fossil Lab at the University of Chicago with a reconstructed skull of the dinosaur Spinosaurus mirabilis. The photograph was released by the University of Chicago on February 19, 2026. Keith Ladzinski/Handout via REUTERS
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Fossils of New Species of Huge Dinosaur Unearthed in Niger

Paleontologist Paul Sereno poses in his Fossil Lab at the University of Chicago with a reconstructed skull of the dinosaur Spinosaurus mirabilis. The photograph was released by the University of Chicago on February 19, 2026. Keith Ladzinski/Handout via REUTERS
Paleontologist Paul Sereno poses in his Fossil Lab at the University of Chicago with a reconstructed skull of the dinosaur Spinosaurus mirabilis. The photograph was released by the University of Chicago on February 19, 2026. Keith Ladzinski/Handout via REUTERS

At a remote and barren Sahara desert site in Niger, scientists have unearthed fossils of a new species of Spinosaurus, among the biggest of the meat-eating dinosaurs, notable for its large blade-shaped head crest and jaws bearing interlocking teeth for snaring slippery fish.

It prowled a forested inland environment and strode into rivers to catch sizable fish like a modern-day wading bird - a "hell heron," as one of the researchers put it, considering it was about 40 feet (12 meters) long and weighed 5-7 tons.

The dinosaur presented a striking profile on the Cretaceous Period landscape of Africa some 95 million years ago as it hunted large fish like coelacanths in the region's waterways. Its bony cranial crest, about 20 inches (50 cm) tall, resembled a curved sword called a scimitar, and it had a large sail-like structure on its back and an elongated crocodile-like snout.

Along with the existing genus name Spinosaurus, meaning "spine lizard," the researchers gave it the species name mirabilis, meaning "astonishing," referring to ‌its crest. A genus ‌is a group of closely related species bearing similar traits. For example, lions and tigers ‌are ⁠the same genus ⁠but different species.

It is only the second known species of Spinosaurus, a dinosaur that has gained fame in popular culture for its depiction in the "Jurassic Park" movies. The other one, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, was named in 1915 based on fossils from Egypt.

Spinosaurus, the only known semiaquatic dinosaur predator, joins Tyrannosaurus, Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus among the largest meat-eating dinosaurs.

The two Spinosaurus species, which were contemporaneous, shared the same general body plan including long dorsal spines forming the sail-like structure and a skull adapted for hunting fish. The crest of Spinosaurus mirabilis is much larger compared to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, and it has a more elongated snout, teeth more spread out from each other and longer hind limbs.

The researchers said its crest likely ⁠was for display, since it appears too fragile to have been used as a weapon, ‌even though it was solid bone without the air sacs present in some other ‌dinosaur crests. The crest, probably sheathed in keratin like a bull's horns, may have been vividly colored and instrumental in sexual or territorial competition ‌or recognition between individuals.

"It's about love and life - attracting a mate, defending your hot feeding shallows," said University of Chicago paleontologist Paul ‌Sereno, lead author of the research published on Thursday in the journal Science. "What else could be more important?"

The retracted location of its nostrils, farther back than usual, let it submerge most of its snout under water to stalk swimming prey for as long as necessary while breathing normally. In addition, its upper and lower rows of teeth fit neatly together during a bite, called interdigitation.

"Their large conical teeth without serrations that interdigitate form a 'fish trap' ‌that is very good at piercing and trapping slippery fish in the jaws, preventing them from sliding," said paleontologist and study co-author Daniel Vidal of the University of Chicago and Universidad ⁠Nacional de Educación a Distancia in ⁠Spain.

"Spinosaurus mirabilis has some of the most extreme piscivorous adaptations of any dinosaur, so we know it was better at preying upon fish than it would have been at preying upon other dinosaurs," Reuters quoted Vidal as saying.

Fossils of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus come from sites in Egypt and Morocco near the Cretaceous coastline of the Tethys Sea, predecessor to today's Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. That fact, plus certain skeletal traits, led some scientists to hypothesize Spinosaurus was fully aquatic, an open-water swimmer and diving pursuit predator in a marine setting.

But the Spinosaurus mirabilis fossils were found far inland, roughly 300-600 miles (500-1,000 km) from the nearest ocean shoreline. That fact, coupled with aspects of the animal's anatomy, instead point to Spinosaurus as a shallow-water predator and not fully aquatic, the researchers said.

Sereno called the Spinosaurus mirabilis discovery "the coup de grâce for the aquatic hypothesis."

Jenguebi, where the fossils were discovered, is a remote Sahara locality, with fossil-rich sandstone outcrops surrounded by sand dunes. For their 2022 expedition, the researchers set out from the city of Agadez in a convoy and drove off-road through desert terrain for almost three days, often getting stuck in the sand.

The journey paid off, as they discovered parts of three Spinosaurus mirabilis skulls and other bones, along with fossils of other creatures.

Long overshadowed in the public imagination by T. rex, Spinosaurus is now having its time in the spotlight.

"It's a dino-happening," Sereno said.

Varieties

Rocket Re-entry Pollution Measured in Atmosphere for 1st Time

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Dragon spacecraft on top launches from Space Launch Complex 40 for the Crew-12 mission at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on February 13, 2026. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Dragon spacecraft on top launches from Space Launch Complex 40 for the Crew-12 mission at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on February 13, 2026. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)
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Rocket Re-entry Pollution Measured in Atmosphere for 1st Time

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Dragon spacecraft on top launches from Space Launch Complex 40 for the Crew-12 mission at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on February 13, 2026. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Dragon spacecraft on top launches from Space Launch Complex 40 for the Crew-12 mission at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on February 13, 2026. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)

When part of a SpaceX rocket re-entered Earth's atmosphere exactly a year ago, it created a spectacular fireball that streaked across Europe's skies, delighting stargazers and sending a team of scientists rushing towards their instruments.

The German team managed to measure the pollution the rocket's upper stage emitted in our planet's difficult-to-study upper atmosphere -- the first time this has been achieved, according to a study published on Thursday.

It is vital to learn more about this little-understood form of pollution because of the huge number of satellites that are planned to be launched in the coming years, the scientists emphasized.

In the early hours of February 19, 2025, the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket was tumbling back to Earth when it exploded into a fireball that made headlines from the UK to Poland.

"We were excited to try and test our equipment and hopefully measure the debris trail," the team led by Robin Wing and Gerd Baumgarten of the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Germany told AFP via email.

In particular, the scientists wanted to measure how the rocket polluted what they call the "ignorosphere" -- because it is so difficult to study.

This region between 50 to 100 kilometers (31 to 62 miles) above Earth includes the mesosphere and part of the lower thermosphere.

- 'Harbinger' -

The team used technology called LIDAR, which measures pollution in the atmosphere by shooting out lots of laser pulses and seeing which bounce back off something.

They detected a sudden spike in the metal lithium in an area nearly 100 kilometers above Earth. This plume had 10 times more lithium than is normal in this part of the atmosphere.

The team then traced the plume back to where the rocket re-entered the atmosphere, west of Ireland.

For the first time, this proves it is possible to study pollution from re-entering rockets at such heights before it disperses, the scientists said.

But the impact from this rocket pollution remains unknown.

"What we do know is that one ton of emissions at 75 kilometers (altitude) is equivalent to 100,000 tons at the surface," they said.

The study warned the case was a "harbinger" of the pollution to come, given how many rockets will be needed to launch all the satellites that Earth is planning to blast into space.

Currently, there are around 14,000 active satellites orbiting our planet.
In the middle of last month, China applied for permission to launch around 200,000 satellites into orbit.

Then at the end of January, billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX applied for permission to launch one million more.

Eloise Marais, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at University College London not involved in the new study, told AFP the research was "really important".

"There is currently no suitable regulation targeting pollution input into the upper layers of the atmosphere," she explained.

"Even though these portions of the atmosphere are far from us, they have potentially consequential impacts to life on Earth if the pollutants produced are able to affect Earth's climate and deplete ozone in the layer protecting us from harmful UV radiation."

The study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Varieties

Deep-sea Fish Break the Mold with Novel Visual System

A close-up showing the shiny silver-green photophores (light organs) on the lower head of the deep-sea fish Maurolicus muelleri from the Red Sea, seen in this photograph released on February 11, 2026. Dr. Wen-Sung Chung/Handout via REUTERS
A close-up showing the shiny silver-green photophores (light organs) on the lower head of the deep-sea fish Maurolicus muelleri from the Red Sea, seen in this photograph released on February 11, 2026. Dr. Wen-Sung Chung/Handout via REUTERS
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Deep-sea Fish Break the Mold with Novel Visual System

A close-up showing the shiny silver-green photophores (light organs) on the lower head of the deep-sea fish Maurolicus muelleri from the Red Sea, seen in this photograph released on February 11, 2026. Dr. Wen-Sung Chung/Handout via REUTERS
A close-up showing the shiny silver-green photophores (light organs) on the lower head of the deep-sea fish Maurolicus muelleri from the Red Sea, seen in this photograph released on February 11, 2026. Dr. Wen-Sung Chung/Handout via REUTERS

For more than a century, biology textbooks have stated that vision among vertebrates - people included - is built from two clearly defined cell types: rods for processing dim light and cones for bright light and color. New research involving deep-sea fish shows this tidy division is, in reality, not so tidy.

Scientists have identified a new type of visual cell in deep-sea fish that blends the shape and form of rods with the molecular machinery and genes of cones. This hybrid type of cell, adapted for sight in gloomy light conditions, was found in larvae of three deep-sea fish species in the Red Sea, Reuters reported.

The species studied were: a hatchetfish, with the scientific name Maurolicus mucronatus; a lightfish, named Vinciguerria mabahiss; and a lanternfish, named Benthosema pterotum. The hatchetfish retained the hybrid cells throughout its life. The other two shifted to the usual rod-cone dichotomy in adulthood.

All three are small, with adults measuring roughly 1-3 inches (3-7 cm) long and the larvae much littler. They inhabit a marine realm of twilight conditions, with sunlight struggling to penetrate into the watery depths.

The vertebrate retina, a sensory membrane at the back of the eye that detects light and converts it into signals to the brain, possesses two main types of light-sensitive visual cells, called photoreceptors. They are named for their shape: rods and cones.

"The rods and cones slowly change position inside the retina when moving between dim and bright conditions, which is why our eyes take time to adjust when we flick on the light switch on our way to the restroom at night," said Lily Fogg, a postdoctoral researcher in marine biology at the University of Helsinki in Finland and lead author of the research published in the journal Science Advances.

"We found that, as larvae, these deep-sea fish mostly use a mix-and-match type of hybrid photoreceptor. These cells look like rods - long, cylindrical and optimized to catch as many light particles - photons - as possible. But they use the molecular machinery of cones, switching on genes usually found only in cones," Fogg said.

The researchers examined the retinas of fish larvae caught at depths from 65 to 650 feet (20 to 200 meters). In the type of dim environment they inhabit, rod and cone cells both are usually engaged in the vertebrate retina, but neither works very well. These fish display an evolutionary remedy.

"Our results challenge the longstanding idea that rods and cones are two fixed, clearly separated cell types. Instead, we show that photoreceptors can blend structural and molecular features in unexpected ways. This suggests that vertebrate visual systems are more flexible and evolutionarily adaptable than previously thought," Fogg said.

"It is a very cool finding that shows that biology does not fit neatly into boxes," said study senior author Fabio Cortesi, a marine biologist and neuroscientist at the University of Queensland in Australia. "I wouldn't be surprised if we find these cells are much more common across all vertebrates, including terrestrial species."

All three species emit bioluminescence using small light-emitting organs on their bodies, mostly located on the belly. They produce blue-green light that blends with the faint background light from the sun above. This strategy, called counterillumination, is a common form of camouflage in the deep sea to avoid predators.

"Small fish like these fuel the open ocean. They are plentiful and serve as food for many larger predatory fishes, including tuna and marlin, marine mammals such as dolphins and whales, and marine birds," Cortesi said.

These kinds of fish also engage in one of the biggest daily migrations in the animal kingdom. They swim near the surface at night to feed in plankton-rich waters, then return to the depths - 650 to 3,280 feet (200 to 1,000 meters) - during daytime to avoid predation.

"The deep sea remains a frontier for human exploration, a mystery box with the potential for significant discoveries," Cortesi said. "We should look after this habitat with the utmost care to make sure future generations can continue to marvel at its wonders."