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RUSH’s 500 Screens Bring Gamers Together as Part of Riyadh Season

From the RUSH Festival. Photo: Saleh Al-Ghanam
From the RUSH Festival. Photo: Saleh Al-Ghanam
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RUSH’s 500 Screens Bring Gamers Together as Part of Riyadh Season

From the RUSH Festival. Photo: Saleh Al-Ghanam
From the RUSH Festival. Photo: Saleh Al-Ghanam

The RUSH Festival, the largest event bringing gamers from across the world together, concludes its activities Wednesday after five days of gaming competitions.

Gamers flocked to the event to compete in 34 games, like Call of Duty and PUBG, with tickets selling out very shortly after they were online on the Riyadh Season website.

The festival organized the first PUBG Mobile championship in the region, with 16 teams from around the world taking part. Preparation for the festival’s offline gaming competitions came in several stages and began months ago, with over 14,000 players taking part.

The attendees chose from 500 screens placed throughout the venue, which was also equipped with comfortable seats. They had a wide variety of sports, fighting and war games to choose from, and many big names in gaming were in attendance, granting festival-goers the opportunity to meet their idols and take photos with them.

The festival also offered gamers the chance to share their gaming tips and experiences with one another, and many gatherings and discussions were held.

The Cosplay competition, in which the gamers dress up after their favorite charters, was also extremely popular among the in-person attendees.

On Monday, the winners were chosen by a panel of local and international judges, and they were awarded $19,000.

The festival introduces new concepts for the organization of international festivals and exhibitions of a high quality that meets the standards of a large, passionate segment of society and grants visitors the opportunity to use and see the latest gaming technology. It was organized in line with Riyadh Season’s goal of holding events that generate broad enthusiasm and allow them to undergo unique experiences unprecedented in the region.

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Varieties

Interstellar Comet Keeps Its Distance as It Makes Its Closest Approach to Earth

This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles (286 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP)
This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles (286 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP)
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Interstellar Comet Keeps Its Distance as It Makes Its Closest Approach to Earth

This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles (286 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP)
This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles (286 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP)

A stray comet from another star swings past Earth this week in one last hurrah before racing back toward interstellar space.

Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas will pass within 167 million miles (269 million kilometers) of our planet on Friday, the closest it gets on its grand tour of the solar system.

NASA continues to aim its space telescopes at the visiting ice ball, estimated to be between 1,444 feet (440 meters) and 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) in size. But it’s fading as it exits, so now’s the time for backyard astronomers to catch it in the night sky with their telescopes, The AP news reported.

The comet will come much closer to Jupiter in March, zipping within 33 million miles (53 million kilometers). It will be the mid-2030s before it reaches interstellar space, never to return, said Paul Chodas, director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies.

It’s the third known interstellar object to cut through our solar system. Interstellar comets like 3I/Atlas originate in star systems elsewhere in the Milky Way, while home-grown comets like Halley's hail from the icy fringes of our solar system.

A telescope in Hawaii discovered the first confirmed interstellar visitor in 2017. Two years later, an interstellar comet was spotted by a Crimean amateur astronomer. NASA’s sky-surveying Atlas telescope in Chile spotted comet 3I/Atlas in July while prowling for potentially dangerous asteroids.

Scientists believe the latest interloping comet, also harmless, may have originated in a star system much older than ours, making it a tantalizing target.

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Japan’s Only Two Pandas to Be Sent Back to China 

Giant panda Lei Lei eats bamboo at Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo, Japan, 28 November 2025. (EPA)
Giant panda Lei Lei eats bamboo at Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo, Japan, 28 November 2025. (EPA)
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Japan’s Only Two Pandas to Be Sent Back to China 

Giant panda Lei Lei eats bamboo at Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo, Japan, 28 November 2025. (EPA)
Giant panda Lei Lei eats bamboo at Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo, Japan, 28 November 2025. (EPA)

Two pandas at a Tokyo zoo will be returned to China in January, the Tokyo government said on Monday, potentially leaving Japan without the beloved animals for the first time in half a century.

Loaned out as part of China's "panda diplomacy" program, the distinctive black-and-white animals have symbolized friendship between Beijing and Tokyo since the normalization of diplomatic ties in 1972.

Japan currently has only two pandas, Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao, at Tokyo's Zoological Gardens in the Ueno neighborhood.

But the twins are now set to be repatriated a month before their loan period expires in February, said Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which operates the Ueno zoo.

Tokyo's regional government has been asking for the immensely popular mammals to remain at the zoo -- where they attract huge crowds -- but China didn't agree, according to the Nikkei business daily.

In September last year, animal lovers in Tokyo bid farewell to the parents of Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao who returned home.

Just before they left, thousands of tearful fans came out to catch a final glimpse and take photographs of the beloved bears.

The Asahi Shimbun reported that Tokyo is seeking the loan of a new pair, although their arrival before the return of Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao is seen as unlikely.

Ties between Asia's two largest economies are fast deteriorating after Japan's conservative premier Sanae Takaichi hinted that Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of any attack on Taiwan.

Her comment provoked the ire of Beijing, which regards the island as its own territory.

Japan's top government spokesman Minoru Kihara said pandas have helped ties with China.

"Exchanges through pandas have contributed to improving the feelings between the people of Japan and China. We hope such exchanges will continue," Kihara told a regular press briefing.

He said that "several local governments and zoos have expressed interest in receiving pandas on loan" but did not state whether the national government was asking China for new animals.

The Ueno zoo has long been the beneficiary of panda diplomacy, having cooperated with facilities in China and the United States to successfully breed giant pandas.

Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao were delivered in 2021 by their mother Shin Shin, who arrived in 2011 and was returned to China last year.

Breeding pandas in a zoo environment is fiendishly tricky due to their difficulties mating, false pregnancies and high mortality rates of newborn cubs.

Varieties

Spain Fines Airbnb 64 Mn Euros for Posting Banned Properties

FILE PHOTO: Airbnb logo is seen in this illustration taken August 5, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Airbnb logo is seen in this illustration taken August 5, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Spain Fines Airbnb 64 Mn Euros for Posting Banned Properties

FILE PHOTO: Airbnb logo is seen in this illustration taken August 5, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Airbnb logo is seen in this illustration taken August 5, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Spain's leftist government said Monday it had fined Airbnb more than 64 million euros ($75 million), notably for posting listings for banned rental properties, at a time the country faces a housing crisis.

The fine is final, the consumer affairs ministry said in a statement, adding the US holiday-rental giant must "correct the violations by deleting illegal content".

The ministry said 65,122 adverts on Airbnb breached consumer rules, including the promotion of properties without a license or those whose license number did not match with data in registers, AFP said.

The fine is equivalent to six times the illegal profit made by Airbnb between the time the company was warned about the offending adverts and before they were taken down, the ministry added.

A tourism boom has driven the buoyant Spanish economy but fueled local concern about increasingly scarce and unaffordable housing, a top priority for the minority coalition government.

The world's second most-visited country hosted a record 94 million foreign tourists in 2024 and is on course to surpass that figure this year.

But residents of hotspots such as Barcelona blame short-term rentals for the housing crisis and changing their neighborhoods.

In June, the consumer rights ministry also ordered online accommodation giant Booking.com to take down more than 4,000 illegal adverts.

"There are thousands of families who are living on the edge due to housing, while a few get rich with business models that expel people from their homes," far-left consumer rights minister Pablo Bustinduy said in the ministry statement.