Al-Azhar Urges Action to Address Climate Change

Part of the Al-Azhar University’s conference on climate change (Al-Azhar)
Part of the Al-Azhar University’s conference on climate change (Al-Azhar)
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Al-Azhar Urges Action to Address Climate Change

Part of the Al-Azhar University’s conference on climate change (Al-Azhar)
Part of the Al-Azhar University’s conference on climate change (Al-Azhar)

Al-Azhar has ordered its institution to draft a curriculum to raise awareness of the dangers of climate change and coordinate efforts to address environmental and climate crises.

This comes as part of Egyptian institutions’ preparations to host the COP27 United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2022 in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

“Preserving the environment and limiting the climate change crisis is a crucial matter and underestimating its negative impacts exacerbates poverty rates,” it noted.

Al-Azhar University’s third scientific conference for environment and sustainable development kicked off on Saturday in Cairo, under the auspices of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The three-day event is attended by Al-Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Awqaf Minister Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa and Egypt’s Grand Mufti Dr. Shawki Allam, as well as prominent religious figures.

Among various topics, the conference will discuss the impact of pollution on climate and the negative effect of climate change on health, industry, water and agriculture, as well as the role of greenhouse gas emissions in upping pollution rates and global warming.

Tayeb underlined the importance of coordinating efforts between religious leadersو scholars and political leaders to raise awareness about environmental and climate crises.

Tayeb said that Sisi’s sponsorship of the event asserts Egypt’s interest and keenness to claim responsibility and play its role in facing the major challenges facing humanity.

Climate change is causing rise in temperatures, the outbreak of fires in forests, snowfall in the seas and oceans and the extinction of many animal and plant species, he stressed.

These have prompted officials in the east and the west to warn from these dangers, hold international conferences to address the causes of this catastrophe and work hard to prevent it and criminalize its perpetrators.

President of Al-Azhar University Mohamed al-Mahrasawi said climate change is an “old, modern and renewed issue,” considering it one of the most complex matters.

“Poor peoples are still paying a heavy bill as a price for the welfare of the major industrialized countries, their exploitation of the environment and their pollution and global warming.”

He called for forming a specialized scientific committee to prepare a simple educational curriculum on the dangers of climate and environmental changes and means to address them and reduce their effects.



Syria War Monitor Says More than 130 Dead in Army-Extremist Clashes

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
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Syria War Monitor Says More than 130 Dead in Army-Extremist Clashes

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)

A Syria war monitor on Thursday said clashes between the army and extremists killed more than 130 combatants in the worst fighting in the country's northwest in years, as the government also reported fierce battles.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said extremist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions launched a surprise attack on the Syrian army in the northern province of Aleppo on Wednesday.
The toll "in battles ongoing for the past 24 hours has risen to 132, including 65 fighters from HTS", 18 from allied factions "and 49 members of regime forces", said the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
Some of the clashes, in an area straddling Idlib and Aleppo provinces, are less than 10 kilometers (six miles) southwest of the outskirts of Aleppo city.
HTS, led by Al-Qaeda's former Syria branch, controls swathes of much of the northwest Idlib area and slivers of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.
An AFP correspondent reported heavy, uninterrupted clashes east of the city of Idlib since Wednesday morning, including air strikes.
A military statement carried by state news agency SANA said that "armed terrorist organizations grouped under so-called 'Nusra terrorist front' present in Aleppo and Idlib provinces launched a large, broad-fronted attack" on Wednesday morning.
It said the attack with "medium and heavy weapons targeted safe villages and towns and our military sites in those areas".
The army "in cooperation with friendly forces" confronted the attack "which is still continuing", inflicting "heavy losses" on the armed groups, the military statement said, without reporting army losses.
Key highway
The Observatory said HTS was able to advance in Idlib province, taking control of Dadikh, Kafr Batikh and Sheikh Ali "after heavy clashes with the regime forces with Russian air cover".
"The villages have strategic importance due to their proximity to the M5 international highway", the monitor said, adding the factions, which already took control of two other locations, were "trying to cut the Aleppo-Damascus international highway".
The Observatory said that "Russian warplanes intensified air strikes", targeting the vicinity of Sarmin and other areas in Idlib province, alongside "heavy artillery shelling" and rocket fire.
Syria's conflict broke out after President Bashar al-Assad repressed anti-government protests in 2011, and spiraled into a complex conflict drawing in foreign armies and extremists.
It has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry.
The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire -- repeatedly violated but still largely holding -- brokered by Türkiye and Damascus ally Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.