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Saudi Minister of Culture Inaugurates Riyadh International Book Fair on Behalf of King Salman

Preparations for the opening of the Riyadh International Book Fair (Photo: Bashir Saleh).
Preparations for the opening of the Riyadh International Book Fair (Photo: Bashir Saleh).
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Saudi Minister of Culture Inaugurates Riyadh International Book Fair on Behalf of King Salman

Preparations for the opening of the Riyadh International Book Fair (Photo: Bashir Saleh).
Preparations for the opening of the Riyadh International Book Fair (Photo: Bashir Saleh).

On behalf of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan inaugurated on Thursday the Riyadh International Book Fair (RIBF), with the participation of more than one thousand local, regional and international publishing houses from 28 countries.

In its new edition, the RIBF is held under the slogan, “A New Destination, A New Chapter”, and extends from Oct. 1-10 in its new location in Riyadh.

The most prominent cultural event in Saudi Arabia in the field of books and the publishing sector is organized this year by the Saudi Ministry of Culture, with the presence of Iraq as “guest of honor.”

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Iraqi Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities Dr. Hassan Nadhem said that his country’s participation as a guest of honor at the Riyadh International Book Fair this year comes in light of the “growing relations between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and tireless diplomatic work to build real partnerships with the Kingdom at various levels.”

The activities of the cultural program, which is held on the sidelines of the RIBF, will kick off on Friday, in the presence of prominent Saudi, Arab and international writers, thinkers and critics, who will meet in a set of seminars, lectures and workshops to discuss various fields of cultural creativity.

The exhibition celebrates the experiences of pioneers of literature and arts, including Muhammad Mahdi Al-Jawahiri, Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab, Ali Jawad Al-Taher, Wassini Al-Araj and Prince Khalid Al-Faisal.

Prominent participants include Dr. Abdullah Al-Ghadami, American author Jordan Belfort, and his compatriot Chris Gardner.

Poetry evenings will be held by poets from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and musical and artistic gatherings will be attended by Egyptian musician Omar Khairat, Iraqi Naseer Shamma, and Iraqi singer Saadoun Jaber.

The cultural program also celebrates Iraq as guest of honor, through a series of seminars and poetry evenings, in the presence of the Iraqi minister of Culture.

The RIBF cultural program is divided into three main parts: the first is “Book Talk” evenings, in which nine Saudi, Arab and international authors will be hosted to talk about their experiences in writing. Those include: Prince Turki Al-Faisal, Sheikha Hend Al-Qasimi, the Saudi traveler and author Abdullah Al-Jumah, Kuwaiti novelist Meshaal Hamad, Jordanian novelist Ayman Otoom, American author Jordan Belfort, Kuwaiti novelist Saud Alsanousi, American chef and author Marco Pierre White, and American writer Chris Gardner, author of the famous book, “The Pursuit of Happyness.”

In the second part, “Cultural Encounters,” more than 100 intellectuals and critics of different nationalities will talk about urgent literary and cultural subjects through 36 seminars and lectures held over the ten days of the exhibition.

The third part will be devoted to evenings and prizes honoring authors and icons who served Arab culture, including Prince Khalid Al-Faisal, Advisor to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and Emir of Makkah Al-Mukarramah Region, who will be honored by the Arab World Institute in Paris in a grand ceremony hosted by the exhibition, in return for his immense contribution to Arab culture.

The exhibition will also host over the next Monday and Tuesday the activities of the Publishers Conference - the first of its kind in the Kingdom - in order to discuss the reality of the publishing industry in the Arab world and the ways to make it more competitive at the international level.

Furthermore, the exhibition will organize more than 60 workshops of various stripes and cultural trends, presented by more than 100 experts and specialists in a variety of fields, including workshops on writing and composition, filmmaking, theater, culinary arts, children’s arts and creativity, heritage fashion, science fiction writing, and many others.

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Varieties

New NASA Telescope to Probe Dark Energy, Dark Matter and Exoplanets

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope stands after engineers and technicians working inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility mated the observatory to its payload adapter and a strut payload attach fitting, a specialized piece of hardware designed for large, heavy loads at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape, Canaveral, Florida, US August 7, 2026 NASA/Jolearra Tshiteya via REUTERS
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope stands after engineers and technicians working inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility mated the observatory to its payload adapter and a strut payload attach fitting, a specialized piece of hardware designed for large, heavy loads at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape, Canaveral, Florida, US August 7, 2026 NASA/Jolearra Tshiteya via REUTERS
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New NASA Telescope to Probe Dark Energy, Dark Matter and Exoplanets

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope stands after engineers and technicians working inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility mated the observatory to its payload adapter and a strut payload attach fitting, a specialized piece of hardware designed for large, heavy loads at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape, Canaveral, Florida, US August 7, 2026 NASA/Jolearra Tshiteya via REUTERS
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope stands after engineers and technicians working inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility mated the observatory to its payload adapter and a strut payload attach fitting, a specialized piece of hardware designed for large, heavy loads at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape, Canaveral, Florida, US August 7, 2026 NASA/Jolearra Tshiteya via REUTERS

NASA is preparing to launch its next flagship space observatory, one that scientists plan to use to investigate some of the universe's biggest mysteries including dark energy and dark matter, while also testing gravity at vast scales and hunting for planets beyond our solar system.

The launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a roughly $4 billion project, is planned for Sunday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the observatory to be lofted into orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The launch comes nine months ahead of schedule, according to US space agency officials.

Roman is a follow-on to the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, and the James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021, and has capabilities that can expand on the knowledge gained by those pioneering observatories, both of which continue to operate.

The new telescope's panoramic view of space and its rapid survey speeds offer the opportunity for scientists to study the cosmos as never before, with wide-field surveys examining its structure, composition and evolution.

"Roman's vast reach will allow us to find the weird, the rare and the unusual," Julie McEnery, Roman's senior project scientist ⁠at NASA's Goddard ⁠Space Flight Center in Maryland, told reporters.

"Roman's primary instrument combines exquisite performance and sensitivity with the ability to quickly and efficiently survey the large regions of the sky," Reuters quoted McEnery as saying.

The telescope's main survey will take more than a year, McEnery said.

"The survey will contain over two billion galaxies and enable us to study how the structures in our universe — the stars, the galaxies, the clusters of galaxies — grew and evolved. We'll also measure how our universe has expanded over time. And these are the keys that will allow us to unlock the fundamental nature of dark matter and dark energy and the fabric of the universe itself," McEnery said.

The Big Bang event roughly 13.8 billion years ago initiated the universe, and ⁠it has been expanding ever since. Scientists in 1998 disclosed that this expansion was actually accelerating, with an invisible force called dark energy as the hypothesized reason.

The universe's contents include ordinary matter — stars, planets, gas, dust and all the familiar stuff on Earth — as well as dark matter and dark energy, whose physical nature remains unknown. Ordinary matter represents perhaps 5% of the contents. Dark matter, known through its gravitational influences on galaxies and stars, may represent about 27%. Dark energy may represent about 68%.

"The key questions are: Is dark energy simply a property of empty space that remains constant over time, or does it evolve in time?" cosmologist Mustapha Ishak of the University of Texas at Dallas, a member of Roman's scientific collaboration, told Reuters.

"The recent results from the DESI — Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument — collaboration indicate tantalizing hints of a time evolution of dark energy.

Could the observed acceleration instead indicate that our theory of gravity needs modification on the largest scales? Answering these questions is one of the most important goals of modern cosmology," Ishak said.

Physicist Albert Einstein in 1915 presented his theory of general ⁠relativity explaining gravity, and it ⁠remains foundational.

Roman will map how galaxies cluster and how matter bends light through a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

"These measurements allow us to test whether Einstein's theory remains valid across billions of light-years or whether modifications to gravity (theory) are required," said Ishak. "This is important because it addresses one of the most fundamental questions in physics: What law governs the universe on its largest scales?"

To date, more than 6,350 exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — have been discovered, as scientists search for evidence of potential life beyond Earth.

Roman will conduct one of the most comprehensive searches ever for exoplanets. It is expected to discover thousands of new ones and provide the first statistical census of planetary systems similar to our own. It also will demonstrate new technology to directly image some relatively nearby exoplanets.

After launch and separation from the rocket, the telescope will travel toward a location called Lagrange Point 2, situated about a million miles (1.6 million km) from Earth, about four times the distance to the moon. Webb also resides at this orbital location. Hubble is in low-Earth orbit.

Roman's mission is planned for five years, though NASA said the telescope may have enough fuel for five additional years. US President Donald Trump's administration tried during both his first and second terms to reduce or eliminate funding for Roman, but Congress preserved it.

The telescope is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer. Roman died in 2018 at age 93.

Varieties

Nepal PM Allowed to Wear Signature Sunglasses in Parliament

Newly appointed Prime Minister Balendra Shah, popularly known as "Balen," looks on during his oath ceremony at "Shital Niwas," presidential building in Kathmandu, Nepal, March 27, 2026. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar/File Photo
Newly appointed Prime Minister Balendra Shah, popularly known as "Balen," looks on during his oath ceremony at "Shital Niwas," presidential building in Kathmandu, Nepal, March 27, 2026. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar/File Photo
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Nepal PM Allowed to Wear Signature Sunglasses in Parliament

Newly appointed Prime Minister Balendra Shah, popularly known as "Balen," looks on during his oath ceremony at "Shital Niwas," presidential building in Kathmandu, Nepal, March 27, 2026. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar/File Photo
Newly appointed Prime Minister Balendra Shah, popularly known as "Balen," looks on during his oath ceremony at "Shital Niwas," presidential building in Kathmandu, Nepal, March 27, 2026. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar/File Photo

Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah may keep his signature dark sunglasses on in the legislature due to medical reasons, an official said Tuesday, after the parliament speaker had advised against it.

The rapper-turned-politician better known as "Balen" has rarely been seen in public without his trademark rectangular shades.

The 36-year-old premier has been seen wearing them everywhere from campaign rallies to official engagements and even in his formal portrait after taking office in March.

Earlier this month, Speaker Dol Prasad Aryal advised against wearing dark glasses in the chamber, citing criticism by the public that such eyewear is out of place in the national legislature.

But Shah appears to have won an exemption.

"A report has been submitted to the secretariat pointing to medical reasons for the respected prime minister to need sunglasses," the parliament secretariat's deputy spokesman Ananta Prasad Koirala told AFP.

Koirala said Shah would be allowed to wear the glasses in parliament if they were medically necessary in bright light.

Shah, who has kept a low profile since taking office, is expected to appear for a parliament session on Wednesday.

The dark glasses, often paired with an all-black outfit, have become a defining feature of Shah's public persona since his successful campaign to become the mayor of Kathmandu in 2022.

Their popularity has surged, with shops selling lookalike eyewear as "Balen sunglasses" to customers keen to emulate Shah's style.

Varieties

Indonesians Brave Choking Smoke to Pray for Rain as Country Battles Wildfires

Firetrucks parked near a wildfire burning through a peatland field in Sampit, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Andri Rizky Agustian)
Firetrucks parked near a wildfire burning through a peatland field in Sampit, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Andri Rizky Agustian)
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Indonesians Brave Choking Smoke to Pray for Rain as Country Battles Wildfires

Firetrucks parked near a wildfire burning through a peatland field in Sampit, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Andri Rizky Agustian)
Firetrucks parked near a wildfire burning through a peatland field in Sampit, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Andri Rizky Agustian)

Authorities in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province turned to spiritual measures on Tuesday as huge blazes in central and western regions scorched wide areas of forests and peatland, creating a choking haze that blanketed some cities in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

The prayer gathering in one of the regions hardest hit by this year’s wildfire season comes as the province faces prolonged dry weather that has heightened the risk of forest and peatland fires.

The latest satellite data from the Environment Ministry showed West Kalimantan recorded the highest number of hot spots with 3,120, followed by Central Kalimantan on 2,314 and South Sumatra at 1,500. Forestry Ministry data showed that nearly 940 square kilometers (363 square miles) were burned in July alone, including over 20 square kilometers (8 square miles) in South Sumatra province.

About 3,000 residents gathered in Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra province, to take part in a special Islamic prayer for rain, known as “salat istisqa.” They prayed shoulder to shoulder in the courtyard of the governor’s office as thick smoke shrouded roads, buildings and public facilities, reducing visibility and forcing motorists to drive with their headlights on during the day.

“We have done everything we can and worked closely with all relevant parties,” The Associated Press quoted Gov. Herman Deru as saying before the prayer. “As people of faith, we are also praying to God to send rain so that life can return to normal.”

He also said the public prayer would complement ongoing firefighting and drought-mitigation measures and serve as a moment for residents to unite in confronting the environmental challenges facing the province.

A woman prays during a prayer requesting for rain following wildfires that burn through peatlands in several regions in Sumatra and Kalimantan Island, in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Muhammad Fajri)

Emergency services have been battling wildfires driven by an intensifying El Nino pattern and a prolonged dry season, generating dense smoke that crossed into Malaysia and Brunei, according to the National Disaster Management Agency.

Indonesia is intensifying weather-modification operations to help more than 24,000 firefighters, who were deployed on Sumatra and Borneo islands to combat wildfires, by inducing rainfall through the dispersal of salt particles into suitable clouds, with 30 aircraft for cloud-seeding and water-bombing operations over Kalimantan, and another 22 helicopters covering Sumatra.

As fires continued to spread, the Forestry Ministry announced Tuesday it had sanctioned six forestry concession holders after finding that more than 15 square kilometers (5.8 square miles) of forest and land had burned within areas under their management in West, Central and East Kalimantan provinces on Borneo island.

Five companies were ordered to strengthen fire-control measures and rehabilitate burned land, while a sixth company had its permit suspended because fires on its concession were widespread and recurrent.

Forestry law enforcement director general Dwi Januanto Nugroho said the authorities could pursue criminal charges if investigations uncover evidence that companies or individuals deliberately caused fires or failed to meet their obligations to prevent them.

Indonesian police have arrested 72 people suspected of starting some of the forest and peatland fires.

Plantation owners and traditional farmers often start fires to clear land for farming at low cost, triggering hazardous haze that reduces visibility, disrupts land and air transportation and threatens public health.

Fires are a regular problem during the dry season in Indonesia, the vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, and the haze they generate has periodically drawn diplomatic complaints from neighboring countries in Southeast Asia.