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Asharq Al-Awsat Receives 3 Awards at Arab Media Forum in Dubai

Second Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Media Council Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid with the winners of the Arab Media Award. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Second Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Media Council Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid with the winners of the Arab Media Award. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Asharq Al-Awsat Receives 3 Awards at Arab Media Forum in Dubai

Second Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Media Council Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid with the winners of the Arab Media Award. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Second Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Media Council Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid with the winners of the Arab Media Award. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper proudly received two prestigious awards at the 2nd edition of the Arab Media Award (AMA) ceremony on Monday.

The ceremony, held on the opening day of the 21st edition of the Arab Media Forum (AMF), celebrates excellence in journalism across three key media sectors: Journalism, TV, and Digital Media.

Second Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Media Council Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid,attended the ceremony.

Asharq Al-Awsat's journalists Jamal Johar and Sawsan al-Abtah received the Investigative Reporting Award and Best Columnist Award respectively.

Kuwaiti thinker and renowned media figure Mohammed al-Rumaihi received the Media Personality of the Year award for his tremendous contributions to Arab media.

The Saudi Research and Media Group (SRMG) won various categories, including the Best Economic Program Award for "al-Sabah Ma Siba", airing on the Asharq news channel, and the Digital Media Award category for Best Economic Platform: Argaam.

For the Best Sports Program Award, the winner was "Fi Al Marma," broadcast on the al-Arabiya news channel.

Hespress won the Best News Platform award in digital media, and FilGoal received the Best Sports Platform.

Furthermore, Magdi Abu al-Fotouh of Ashorouq newspaper received the Economic Journalism Award, and Ahmed Diab from al-Ahram al-Arabi won the Political Journalism Award.

Children's Media Award was presented to Asmaa al-Shamsi of Majid Magazine.

"Bil Khat a-Areed", on Lebanon’s LBCI channel, received the Best Social Program Award, while "Thakirato al-Rimal", broadcast on Sky News Arabia, won the Best Documentary Award.

The Arab Media Forum kicked off in Dubai held under the patronage of Vice President and Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Organized by the Dubai Press Club, the two-day event will bring together over 3,000 distinguished attendees, including influential media personalities, ministers, and heads of leading local, Arab, and international media organizations, as well as thought leaders, intellectuals, and writers.

In opening remarks, Managing Director of Dubai Media Council and Chairperson of the Dubai Press Club Mona al-Marri congratulated all the winners and stressed that the award's distinguished status was a testament to years of hard work and constant encouragement.

She stressed that the future of Arab media depends on institutions' ability to adapt to these changes and embrace modern media tools.

Marri also highlighted artificial intelligence's integral role in shaping the future of media.

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Varieties

What if We Killed all Mosquitoes?

Our greatest nemesis. By transmitting diseases, mosquitoes kill three quarters of a million people a year. Olympia DE MAISMONT / AFP/File
Our greatest nemesis. By transmitting diseases, mosquitoes kill three quarters of a million people a year. Olympia DE MAISMONT / AFP/File
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What if We Killed all Mosquitoes?

Our greatest nemesis. By transmitting diseases, mosquitoes kill three quarters of a million people a year. Olympia DE MAISMONT / AFP/File
Our greatest nemesis. By transmitting diseases, mosquitoes kill three quarters of a million people a year. Olympia DE MAISMONT / AFP/File

The deadliest animals are not lions, spiders or snakes, but the tiny mosquitoes that suck our blood, make us itchy and infect us with disease.

Mosquitoes kill around 760,000 people every year, according to research site Our World in Data, with humans ourselves coming a distant second.

This is because mosquitoes account for 17 percent of all infectious diseases, including malaria, dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya and Zika.

And as the world warms due to human-driven climate change, mosquitoes are roaming to new areas during longer summers, raising fears they could propel future health crises.

So how can humanity fight back against our greatest foe? Is there a safe way we could eradicate these killer mosquitoes -- and how bad would that be for the environment?

#Notallmosquitoes

First, we would not need to vanquish all mosquitoes. Out of roughly 3,500 mosquito species, only around 100 bite humans.

And just five species are responsible for roughly 95 percent of human infections, Hilary Ranson, a vector biologist at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, told AFP.

On balance, Ranson felt that losing five mosquito species "could be tolerated given the huge devastation" they inflict on the world, from mass death to crippling economic fallout.

Dan Peach, a mosquito entomologist at the University of Georgia, broadly agreed, but emphasized that more information was needed to compare eradication with the alternatives.

What about the environment?

The five disease-spreading mosquitoes "have evolved to be very closely associated to humans," including feeding on and breeding near us, Ranson explained.

This means eradicating them would not have a major impact on the broader ecosystem -- and other, genetically similar but less deadly mosquitoes would likely quickly "fill that ecological niche", she added.

Peach was not convinced we know enough "about the ecology of most mosquito species to be confident one way or the other, but I also think that it is OK to acknowledge this and still proceed."

Mosquitoes do "transfer nutrients from their aquatic larval habitats" to other areas, and serve as food for insects, fish and other animals, he said.

They also pollinate plants, but this "isn't well understood and may vary by species", Peach added.

Ranson acknowledged there is a valid debate over the ethics of humans committing "specicide", while pointing out that we are currently unintentionally wiping out a huge number of species.

How can it be done?

One of the most prominent new technological options is called gene-drive, which involves genetically modifying animals so that they pass down a particular trait to their offspring.

When scientists tweaked females of malaria-carrying Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes to make them infertile, it wiped out a population in the lab over just a few generations.

Target Malaria, funded by the Gates Foundation, has tested this technology in several African countries.

However the effort was dealt a major blow last year when Burkina Faso's military-led government ended testing in the country, where it had been criticized by civil society groups and targeted by disinformation campaigns.

Another strategy involves infecting Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with the bacteria Wolbachia. This can crash their population -- or simply reduce their ability to transmit dengue.

This raises another question: do we actually need to kill them?

What if we made them harmless instead?

When Wolbachia-infected sterile mosquitoes were released in the Brazilian city of Niteroi, there was an 89 percent drop in dengue cases, research showed last year.

More than 16 million people across 15 countries have now been protected by these mosquitoes, with "no negative consequences", Scott O'Neill, founder of the World Mosquito Program, told AFP.

Meanwhile, a project called Transmission Zero is trying to use gene-drive technology to make it so that Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes no longer spread malaria.

Lab research published in Nature late last year suggested the scientists are getting closer to this goal, with the team planning to launch an in-country trial in 2030.

The Burkina Faso setback showed that these projects must have some "political support or buy-in" from the countries where they are tested, study author Dickson Wilson Lwetoijera of Tanzania's Ifakara Health Institute told AFP.

No 'magic bullet'

Rather than just relying on a technological "magic bullet", usually funded by the Gates Foundation, Ranson called for a more "holistic solution" for these diseases.

This would require giving people in disease-hit countries more access to treatment, diagnosis, better housing and better vaccines, she said.

However sweeping foreign aid cuts by Western countries have threatened progress against most mosquito-borne diseases over the last year, humanitarian organisations have warned.

Varieties

Global Fire Outbreaks Hit Record High as ‘Unprecedented’ Heat Extremes Loom, Scientists Say

A helicopter conducts firefighting operations as wildfires continue in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
A helicopter conducts firefighting operations as wildfires continue in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
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Global Fire Outbreaks Hit Record High as ‘Unprecedented’ Heat Extremes Loom, Scientists Say

A helicopter conducts firefighting operations as wildfires continue in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
A helicopter conducts firefighting operations as wildfires continue in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, April 26, 2026. (Reuters)

Climate change has driven record-breaking outbreaks of fire in Africa, Asia and elsewhere this year, with conditions expected to get worse as the northern hemisphere's summer approaches and El Nino weather patterns kick in, scientists warned on Tuesday.

Fires from January to April have already caused unprecedented levels of damage, burning more than 150 million hectares (370.66 million acres) of land, 20% more than the previous record, according to data compiled by World Weather Attribution, a research group that studies the role played by global warming in extreme weather events.

The researchers said temperature records ‌could be broken this ‌year, causing widespread drought as well as fires, with ‌the impact ⁠of human-induced climate ⁠change compounded by an especially strong "El Nino" effect.

"Whilst in many parts of the world the global fire season has yet to heat up, this rapid start, in combination with the forecast El Nino, means that we're looking at a particularly severe year materializing," said Theodore Keeping, a wildfire expert at Imperial College London and part of the WWA group.

As much as 85 million hectares of land have burned in Africa so far ⁠this year, 23% more than the previous record of ‌69 million hectares, he said.

The unusually high fire ‌activity in Africa is being driven by rapid shifts from extremely wet to extremely dry conditions, he ‌said.

High rainfall produced more grass during the previous growing season, creating an abundance ‌of fuel to feed the drought- and heat-induced savannah fires of the last few months.

EL NINO CONDITIONS DUE THIS MONTH

Asian fires have burned as much as 44 million hectares of land so far this year, nearly 40% more than the previous record year of 2014, ‌with India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and China among the worst hit, Keeping said.

He warned that wildfire risks could worsen later ⁠this year, with El ⁠Nino increasing the likelihood of severe heat and drought in Australia, Canada, the United States and the Amazon rainforest.

"The likelihood of harmful extreme fires potentially could be the highest we've seen in recent history if a strong El Nino does develop," he said. El Nino weather conditions, caused by the warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, are expected to start in May, the World Meteorological Organization said last month.

It could cause droughts in Australia, Indonesia and parts of southern Asia as well as flooding in other regions, and may drive up temperatures, the UN agency warned.

"If there is a strong El Nino later this year, there is a serious risk that the effect of climate change and El Nino ... will result in unprecedented weather extremes," said Friederike Otto, climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-founder of World Weather Attribution.

Varieties

New Zealand Moves to Halt Lawsuits over Climate Damage

(FILES) This photograph shows the scientific ice-going "Kronprins Haakon" sailing through the sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Olivier MORIN / AFP)
(FILES) This photograph shows the scientific ice-going "Kronprins Haakon" sailing through the sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Olivier MORIN / AFP)
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New Zealand Moves to Halt Lawsuits over Climate Damage

(FILES) This photograph shows the scientific ice-going "Kronprins Haakon" sailing through the sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Olivier MORIN / AFP)
(FILES) This photograph shows the scientific ice-going "Kronprins Haakon" sailing through the sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Olivier MORIN / AFP)

New Zealand will change the law to prevent lawsuits that seek to hold companies liable for "climate change damage" linked to greenhouse gas emissions, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said on Tuesday.

Goldsmith cited a lawsuit launched by Indigenous Maori climate activist Michael Smith, who is seeking to hold six prominent New Zealand companies responsible for environmental harms linked to climate change.

He said such cases were "creating uncertainty in business confidence".

New Zealand would change the law to "prevent findings of liability" for "climate change damage or harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions", Goldsmith said.

"The courts are not the right place to resolve claims of harm from climate change, and tort law is not well-suited to respond to a problem like climate change which involves a range of complex environmental, economic and social factors," Goldsmith said.

Tort law deals with civil cases in which people seek compensation for harmful or negligent actions.

Climate activist Smith said the government's announcement was "an affront to democracy".

"If parliament can cancel a live court case, then no legal claim is secure at all, once it becomes politically inconvenient," he told national broadcaster Radio New Zealand.

Smith's case named some of New Zealand's biggest and best-known companies, including dairy farming giant Fonterra.

The laws are all but certain to pass parliament, given New Zealand's ruling coalition holds a majority of seats.

Climate targets

New Zealand's right-leaning government has unraveled a string of environmentally friendly policies since coming to power in 2023.

It has cancelled a clean car discount incentivizing electric vehicle uptake, reversed a ban on oil and gas exploration, and begun a fast-track scheme for mining permits.

From South Korea to Germany, a growing body of litigation around the world is pushing courts to take climate change more seriously.

New Zealand is currently facing a separate legal challenge over its emissions targets.

In January 2025, the government said it aimed to reduce carbon emissions by 51 percent from 2005 levels by 2035.

The target was barely changed from a 50-percent cut targeted for 2030.

Lawyers for Climate Action and the Environmental Law Initiative took Climate Change Minister Simon Watts to court in March, arguing the government was not doing enough.

New Zealand's goal, enshrined in law, is to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, excluding methane produced by waste and agriculture.