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Saudi Mission to the UN Celebrates International Women’s Day

United Nation headquarters in New York (UN)
United Nation headquarters in New York (UN)
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Saudi Mission to the UN Celebrates International Women’s Day

United Nation headquarters in New York (UN)
United Nation headquarters in New York (UN)

The Saudi permanent mission to the United Nations celebrated International Women’s Day on Friday.

Recent reforms to empower women that have swept through Saudi Arabia were highlighted in a virtual meeting with high-ranking UN officials. Special emphasis was placed on enhancing women’s involvement in making decisions regarding critical matters such as politics, economics and human rights.

Guests at the meeting included Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, the permanent Saudi representative to the UN, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of UN women; Miguel Moratinos, the UN’s high-representative for the Alliance of Civilizations; Thoraya Obaid, chair of W20, the G20 engagement group that focuses on women’s empowerment and gender equality; Amal Yahya Al-Mouallimi, the Saudi Ambassador to Norway; Hala Altwaijry, Secretary-general of the Family Affairs Council of Saudi Arabia; Hind Al-Zahid, Saudi Deputy Minister of Women’s Empowerment; and Sarah Al-Tamimi, Vice-chair of the Kingdom’s National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking.

Al-Mouallimi pointed out that since launching the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 led by King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi government has “re-examined civil and labor laws and made serious legislative reforms that seek to empower women.”

He emphasized that these reforms led to an increase in gender equality between men and women, “as evidenced by the fact that more women now occupy high-ranking positions in both the public and private sectors.”

Obaid, for her part, believes that the changes that are happening in Saudi Arabia are “developmental; and thus gradual legislative reforms have become the method of implementation.

“Saudi women are now entering the labor market, competing in municipal elections, and are being appointed for membership in the Shura Council,” she said.

“When men support women, there is no limit to what can be achieved.”

Al-Mouallimi emphasized Saudi women’s participation in diplomatic missions and the role of Saudi women in the Kingdom’s international political and diplomatic scenes, stressing that “these recent reforms enabled Saudi Arabia to participate in higher-level international platforms.”

Altwaijry pointed out that “Saudi women have held many leadership and key positions, including positions in the United Nations programs, the World Health Organization, the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council.”

“The diplomatic field witnessed a 150 percent increase in Saudi Women’s participation.”

She went on to say that Saudi women should be proud of what they have achieved and of going from humble beginnings to representing Saudi Arabia on diplomatic missions.

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Images Show China Building Huge Fusion Research Facility

A satellite photo shows a new large-scale laser fusion research center in Mianyang, China. Courtesy of Planet Labs
A satellite photo shows a new large-scale laser fusion research center in Mianyang, China. Courtesy of Planet Labs
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Images Show China Building Huge Fusion Research Facility

A satellite photo shows a new large-scale laser fusion research center in Mianyang, China. Courtesy of Planet Labs
A satellite photo shows a new large-scale laser fusion research center in Mianyang, China. Courtesy of Planet Labs

China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang, experts at two analytical organisations say, a development that could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation.

Satellite photos show four outlying "arms" that will house laser bays, and a central experiment bay that will hold a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes the powerful lasers will fuse together, producing energy, said Decker Eveleth, a researcher at US-based independent research organisation CNA Corp.

It is a similar layout to the $3.5 billion US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Northern California, which in 2022 generated mceore energy from a fusion reaction than the lasers pumped into the target - "scientific breakeven".

Eveleth, who is working with analysts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), estimates the experiment bay at the Chinese facility is about 50% bigger than the one at NIF, currently the world's largest.

The development has not been previously reported.

"Any country with an NIF-type facility can and probably will be increasing their confidence and improving existing weapons designs, and facilitating the design of future bomb designs without testing" the weapons themselves, said William Alberque, a nuclear policy analyst at the Henry L. Stimson Center.

China's foreign ministry referred Reuters questions to the "competent authority". China's Science and Technology Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

In November 2020, US arms control envoy Marshall Billingslea released satellite images he said showed China's buildup of nuclear weapons support facilities. It included images of Mianyang showing a cleared plot of land labeled "new research or production areas since 2010".

That plot is the site of the fusion research center, called the Laser Fusion Major Device Laboratory, according to construction documents that Eveleth shared with Reuters.

NUCLEAR TESTING

Igniting fusion fuel allows researchers to study how such reactions work and how they might one day create a clean power source using the universe's most plentiful resource, hydrogen. It also enables them to examine nuances of detonation that would otherwise require an explosive test.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, of which both China and the United States are signatories, prohibits nuclear explosions in all environments.

Countries are allowed "subcritical" explosive tests, which do not create nuclear reactions. Laser fusion research, known as inertial confinement fusion, is also allowed.

Siegfried Hecker, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, another key US nuclear weapons research facility, said that with testing banned, subcritical and laser fusion experiments were crucial to maintaining the safety and reliability of the US nuclear arsenal.

But for countries that have not done many test detonations, he said - China has tested 45 nuclear weapons, compared with 1,054 for the United States - such experiments would be less valuable because they do not have a large data set as a base.

"I don't think it would make an enormous difference," Hecker said. "And so ... I'm not concerned about China getting ahead of us in terms of their nuclear facilities."

Other nuclear powers, such as France, the United Kingdom and Russia, also operate inertial confinement fusion facilities.

The size of those facilities reflects the amount of power designers estimate is needed to apply to the target to achieve ignition, said Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for the inertial confinement fusion programme at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which operates NIF.

"These days, I think you probably can build a facility that's of equal energy or even more energetic (than NIF) and a smaller footprint," Hurricane said. But, he added, at too small a scale, experimental fusion does not appear possible.

That other countries operate laser-driven fusion research centers is not a cause for alarm in itself, Hurricane said.

"It's kind of hard to stop scientific progress and hold information back," he said. "People can use science for different means and different ends, and that's a complicated question."