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Al Hussein, Rajwa Wedding Captivates Jordan and the World

Jordan's Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah and Rajwa Al-Saif are greeted as they walk together on the day of their royal wedding, in Amman, Jordan, June 1, 2023. (Royal Hashemite Court (RHC)/Handout via Reuters)
Jordan's Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah and Rajwa Al-Saif are greeted as they walk together on the day of their royal wedding, in Amman, Jordan, June 1, 2023. (Royal Hashemite Court (RHC)/Handout via Reuters)
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Al Hussein, Rajwa Wedding Captivates Jordan and the World

Jordan's Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah and Rajwa Al-Saif are greeted as they walk together on the day of their royal wedding, in Amman, Jordan, June 1, 2023. (Royal Hashemite Court (RHC)/Handout via Reuters)
Jordan's Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah and Rajwa Al-Saif are greeted as they walk together on the day of their royal wedding, in Amman, Jordan, June 1, 2023. (Royal Hashemite Court (RHC)/Handout via Reuters)

Jordan's Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah married Saudi architect Rajwa Al-Saif on Thursday in a palace ceremony attended by royals and other VIPs from around the world, as massive crowds gathered across the kingdom to celebrate the region's newest power couple.

Rajwa is daughter to Khalid bin Musaed bin Saif bin Abdulaziz Al-Saif and Azza bint Nayef Abdulaziz Ahmed Al-Sudairi. The wedding drew a star-studded guest list including Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate, US First Lady Jill Biden, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid and his wife Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Crown Princess Mary, King Philippe of Belgium, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Cyprus first lady Philippa Karsera, and Queen Jetsun Pema of Bhutan.

The bride, wearing an elegant white dress by Lebanese designer Elie Saab, arrived at Zahran Palace in a 1968 Rolls-Royce Phantom V custom-made for the crown prince’s late great grandmother. The crown prince arrived earlier in full ceremonial military uniform with a gold-hilted saber.

The families and their guests gathered in an open-air gazebo decked with flowers and surrounded by landscaped gardens for a traditional Muslim wedding. The crowd erupted in applause after the signing of the marriage contract. Al-Saif will henceforth be known as Her Royal Highness Princess Rajwa Al Hussein, according to a royal decree.

Several miles away, a jolt went through a packed ancient Roman amphitheater as viewers watched the couple seal their vows and exchange rings on a wide screen. After several minutes of stillness, the crowd of some 18,000 people were on their feet, waving flags and shrieking with excitement at one of several viewing parties held across the nation.

Samara Aqrabawi, a 55-year-old mother watching the livestream with her young daughter, said the ceremony was more impressive than she imagined. “I wish for all mothers and fathers in Jordan and in the world to feel like they’re surely feeling,” she said of the king and queen.

The newlyweds later emerged from the palace in a white custom Range Rover escorted by several bright red Land Rovers, motorcycles and a military marching band — a nod to the traditional horse-mounted processions during the reign of the country's founder, King Abdullah I.

The kingdom declared Thursday a public holiday so crowds of people could gather to wave at the couple’s motorcade amid a heavy security presence across the city. Tens of thousands of well-wishers attended free concerts and cultural events.

On Thursday morning, Saudi wedding guests and tourists — the men wearing white dishdasha robes and the women in brightly colored abayas — filtered through the marbled lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman.

“We are all so excited, so happy about this union,” said Noura Al-Sudairi, an aunt of the bride. “Of course it’s a beautiful thing for our families, and for the relationship between Jordan and Saudi Arabia.”

Excitement over the nuptials — Jordan’s biggest royal event in decades — has been building in the capital of Amman, where congratulatory banners of Hussein and his beaming bride adorn buses and hang over winding hillside streets. Shops had competing displays of royal regalia.

“She looks like such a princess that I think she deserves him,” Suhair Afaneh, a 37-year-old businesswoman, said of the bride, lingering in front of a portrait of Hussein in a dark suit.

Jordan’s 11 million residents have watched the young crown prince rise in prominence in recent years, as he increasingly joined his father, Abdullah, in public appearances. Hussein has graduated from Georgetown University, joined the military and gained some global recognition speaking at the UN General Assembly.

The wedding took place a week after Jordan’s 77th birthday. Combining tradition and modernity, the royal family introduced a wedding hashtag (#Celebrating Al Hussein) and omnipresent logo that fuses the couple’s initials into the Arabic words “We rejoice.”

Zahran Palace in Amman, where the marriage ceremony was held, hasn’t seen such pomp and circumstance since 1993, when, on a similarly sunny June day, Abdullah married Rania, who was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents. Decades earlier, Abdullah's father, the late King Hussein, sealed his vows in the same garden with his second wife, the British citizen Antoinette Gardiner.

In addition to the Prince and Princess of Wales, the guest list includes an array of foreign aristocrats and dignitaries, including senior royals from Europe and Asia, Saudi aristocrats, as well as US climate envoy John Kerry.

Both Rajwa and Kate wore gowns by the Lebanese designer Elie Saab, said a spokeswoman for the company, Maryline Mossino.

The motorcade drove through Amman to the Al Husseiniya Palace, a 30-minute drive away, for the reception. There, the newlyweds walked beneath an arch of swords and were welcomed with a traditional zaffeh, a lively musical procession featuring drums, dancing, singing and clapping.

The royals greeted more than 1,700 guests at the reception, which featured live music and a banquet. The celebrations were capped with a fireworks display that could be seen across the capital.

Jordanians from all walks of life shared an infectious excitement about the wedding.

“This is a really important day for my country, and those who are not Jordanian wouldn’t understand,” said Najwa Issamad, a 40-year-old nurse watching her teenage sons dance rowdily to pop wedding music blaring from their phones downtown. “It’s a time for all Jordanians to stop whatever we’re doing and say, let’s celebrate, let’s rejoice.”

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Varieties

Tokyo Residents Fight for More Trees

This picture taken on August 25, 2026 shows a woman crossing with her bike on a street in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)
This picture taken on August 25, 2026 shows a woman crossing with her bike on a street in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)
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Tokyo Residents Fight for More Trees

This picture taken on August 25, 2026 shows a woman crossing with her bike on a street in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)
This picture taken on August 25, 2026 shows a woman crossing with her bike on a street in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)

One sweltering day in Tokyo, Kaoru Morimoto told friends she wasn't sure she could endure another summer in her neighborhood, where tree cover and the crucial shade it provides is dwindling.

As Japan experiences ever more frequent extreme heat, tree cover that can help lower temperatures is shrinking rather than growing in Tokyo, bucking a trend among many major world capitals.

Morimoto wants that to change. Last year she launched a campaign urging officials to set a canopy cover target, a rare grassroots initiative focused on the issue.

"Everyone says the summer has become more intense," but public awareness about Tokyo's lack of tree cover is low, Morimoto told AFP.

In this picture taken on August 25, 2026 activist Kaoru Morimoto looks on while checking the temperature in Nakano district of Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)

Together with Susumu Nirasawa, a fellow resident in her western Tokyo neighborhood of Nakano, the 66-year-old organizes expert talks, shares temperature data on social media, and attends local council meetings where she petitions officials. Around 30 others in the community have joined the cause.

"We want the ward government to take the issue seriously," Nirasawa, 71, said.

Japan saw its hottest summer on record in 2025, with warmer days on the rise globally due to climate change.

This year, the country recorded almost 120 heat-related deaths between May and August, while more than 73,000 people needed emergency care.

Although experts say greater tree cover can help lower air temperatures, a University of Tokyo study in 2024 showed the city lost canopy cover equivalent to three and a half times the size of New York's Central Park in under a decade.

Thermometers and notebook in hand, Morimoto and Nirasawa take their own temperature readings in Nakano, hoping hard data will help unite their neighbors behind the cause.

We "measured the shade under trees with large canopies and under trees that had been more heavily pruned," said Morimoto. "There was about a three-degree difference."

In the 2024 study, University of Tokyo researcher and urban forestry expert Kinya Shiraishi found that canopy cover in central Tokyo fell to 7.3 percent in 2022 from 9.2 percent in 2013, a loss of 12 square kilometers.

By comparison, canopy cover in New York stands at around 23 percent, with the city aiming to raise it to 30 percent by 2040.

London aims for a 10 percent increase from its current 20 percent by 2050, while Paris also plans to boost coverage from about 18 percent.

"If we want to improve the quality of urban life, canopy cover is one of the key factors," Shiraishi told AFP, adding that trees also lower flooding risks and can help city dwellers feel calmer.

He said the decline was driven largely by the loss of private residential gardens, with ageing landowners selling their properties and mature trees often felled as large plots are subdivided to meet housing demand in the capital.

Many roads in Tokyo are also narrow and have little space for greenery, while authorities are wary of trees toppling over in extreme weather.

A Tokyo metropolitan government official told AFP that the city "is currently working to expand tree canopies through careful pruning, focusing on roads where the pavements are wide and the trees can grow".

Without proper management, trees threaten the visibility of traffic lights and are at risk of falling during typhoons, he said, adding that Tokyo uses a benchmark for measuring greenery which includes farmland and grassland found in its outer reaches.

But on a hot, sunny day in the city center, there was little shade along a street home to the finance ministry. One plane tree stood almost bare, its upper branches cut back close to the trunk.

"Unless we promptly make efforts to increase canopy cover and shift our policies, we'll run out of time," said Eijiro Fujii, professor emeritus at Chiba University who specializes in horticulture, glancing at a group of heavily pruned trees in Tokyo's central district of Kasumigaseki.

In this picture taken on August 25, 2026 Eijiro Fujii, professor emeritus at Chiba University, speaks during an interview with AFP in the Kasumigaseki neighbourhood, where most government ministries are located, in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)

Fujii blames overpruning, developed to manage trees in limited spaces, as well as the frequent rotation of public officials overseeing street greenery, for the decrease in canopy cover.

In Nakano, Morimoto and Nirasawa say the ward's mayor has recently begun to emphasize the importance of tree shade, but neighborhood officials have so far failed to set a target for canopy cover.

"Deaths from heat stroke are rapidly increasing in Japan," Fujii said. "We need to act before it's too late."

Varieties

KAUST, Oxford Develop Electronic Sensor to Detect Parkinson’s Markers in Blood

The study was published in Science Advances. SPA
The study was published in Science Advances. SPA
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KAUST, Oxford Develop Electronic Sensor to Detect Parkinson’s Markers in Blood

The study was published in Science Advances. SPA
The study was published in Science Advances. SPA

Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), in collaboration with the University of Oxford, have developed a blood-based electronic sensor capable of detecting molecular signatures associated with Parkinson’s disease.

The study was published in Science Advances. The technology uses a highly sensitive electronic sensor developed at KAUST to simultaneously detect three different forms of alpha-synuclein, a protein closely associated with Parkinson’s disease. The sensor can detect these proteins at extremely low concentrations that are difficult to measure using conventional analytical techniques.

The approach first isolates tiny packages released by nerve cells into the bloodstream before their protein contents are analyzed using the electronic sensor. At the heart of the technology is a transistor that amplifies very small biological signals into much larger electronic signals, allowing all three forms of alpha-synuclein to be measured within 40 minutes.

Parkinson’s damages dopamine-producing neurons, leading to problems with movement, balance, and other bodily functions. It is currently diagnosed largely through clinical assessment, often after characteristic movement symptoms have emerged.

Detecting disease-related proteins originating from the brain could offer an earlier window into the disease but measuring them in blood is extremely difficult because more than 95 percent of circulating alpha-synuclein originates from red blood cells, creating heavy background noise.

Saudi Arabia’s healthcare system is placing increasing emphasis on prevention and earlier detection as people live longer. Life expectancy in the Kingdom has risen to 79.7 years, approaching the Saudi Vision 2030 target of 80, while the proportion of older people is expected to grow significantly in the coming decades.

Against this backdrop, technologies that could eventually help identify age-related diseases such as Parkinson’s earlier could become increasingly relevant to long-term healthcare.

In a blinded evaluation involving 59 participants from the Oxford Discovery cohort, the platform achieved 90.9 percent accuracy in distinguishing disease-associated profiles from healthy controls.

The study included people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, healthy controls, and individuals with isolated REM sleep behavior disorder, a condition which is associated with an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s or related neurological disorders.

Researchers found distinct patterns in the different forms of alpha-synuclein across the groups, suggesting that measuring them together could provide more useful diagnostic information than relying on a single marker.

Associate Professor of Bioengineering at KAUST Sahika Inal said: “Changes associated with Parkinson’s can begin long before a clinical diagnosis, but detecting those changes through something as accessible as blood remains extremely challenging.”

“Our approach allows us to detect several forms of alpha-synuclein together at extremely low concentrations. These early results are encouraging, and the next step is to validate the technology in much larger groups of patients,” he added.

The researchers caution that the technology is not yet a standalone clinical blood test. The current study represents a retrospective evaluation in an initial cohort, and larger, prospective, multicenter clinical studies will be needed to establish its long-term predictive value before the platform could be used routinely in healthcare.

Varieties

Sumatra Rhino Pregnancies Nurse Hope for Endangered Species' Future

People commute along a road as haze from forest and land fires shrouds Palembang, South Sumatra on October 2, 2026. (Photo by AL ZULKIFLI / AFP)
People commute along a road as haze from forest and land fires shrouds Palembang, South Sumatra on October 2, 2026. (Photo by AL ZULKIFLI / AFP)
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Sumatra Rhino Pregnancies Nurse Hope for Endangered Species' Future

People commute along a road as haze from forest and land fires shrouds Palembang, South Sumatra on October 2, 2026. (Photo by AL ZULKIFLI / AFP)
People commute along a road as haze from forest and land fires shrouds Palembang, South Sumatra on October 2, 2026. (Photo by AL ZULKIFLI / AFP)

Two critically endangered Sumatran rhinos have fallen pregnant at an Indonesian sanctuary, boosting hopes for the survival of one of the world's rarest and most threatened mammals, the government said on Sunday.

Ratu, a female Sumatran rhino at the Way Kambas National Park on Sumatra island, has been pregnant with her fourth calf for 238 days -- nearly half the gestation period.

Ratu means "queen" in Indonesian.

Ratu's daughter, Delilah, is more than 250 days into a pregnancy with her second calf, and both should give birth in May next year.

"The pregnancies of these two Sumatran rhinos are not only good news for Indonesia, but also for the world," AFP quoted Indonesian forestry ministry official Ahmad Munawir as saying in a statement.

"The pregnancies of the two female rhinos are part of long-term efforts to ensure the survival of the Sumatran rhino population through planned breeding, reproductive health management, and intensive monitoring of individual animals," he added.

The ministry said the health and safety of the females were being closely monitored by a medical team, keepers, and national parks management.

"All five species of rhino face serious threats... This announcement marks a significant milestone in the fight to save this imperiled species," Nina Fascione, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation, said in a separate statement.

"Ratu and Delilah's pregnancies represent two more individuals that can help bring Sumatran rhinos back from the brink of extinction."

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies Sumatran rhinos as critically endangered, with fewer than 80 individuals remaining in the wild.

The species is found only in Indonesia, scattered across national park areas in North Sumatra, Lampung, Bengkulu, and East Kalimantan.