Ahmed Hader is at the forefront of aerial photography in the country but now as Hajj comes Hader got access to shoot the sacred journey of Hajj from high above.
From capturing the Kaaba through the crescent atop the Makkah Royal Clock Tower to shooting the city lights of Arafat from high above his photos as expected are amazing.
Congratulations to Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University (PNU) for jumping 59 places in one year only, the university now ranks the 79 globally in the internally recognized UI GreenMetric World University Rankings.
The university ranked second at the local level in the UI GreenMetric 2020 and the fourth in the Middle East.
The ranking, which is done every year, measures the efforts that campuses exert to become sustainable and its eco-friendly infrastructures. The index looks at 912 universities in 94 countries.
It looks at six main indicators: Infrastructure, energy, waste, water, transportation, and the level of the educational process.
PNU’s advancement this year reflects the effort of the university in maintaining the environmental standards and providing an integrated healthy educational environment that aims at achieving environmental sustainability at all levels.
The Saudi Health Ministry announced last night that the Kingdom will provide citizens and residents with the Covid-19 vaccine for free, a senior official told Saudi Al Ekhbariya TV.
The ministry hopes that these vaccines will cover 70% of the Kingdom’s population by the end of next year.
Dr Abdullah Asiri, assistant undersecretary at the ministry, said that the Kingdom is to obtain vaccines through Covax and companies outside of the consortium.
“The Kingdom worked on two paths to obtain the vaccine, through the COVAX organisation, which the G20 had a role in creating and financing…Saudi Arabia will obtain a large number of vaccines through this facility, while the second track is directly contracting with the big companies to cover the gap that cannot be covered through COVAX,” Arab News mentioned Asiri as saying.
“One of the most important goals set by the G20 during Saudi Arabia’s G20 presidency is to support all-inclusive and equitable access to vaccines, diagnostic and treatment tools,” he added.
Dr Al Rabeeah said Saudi Arabia had spent so far more than $200 million on vaccine and developing a drug for the virus.
The promising news is that so far, three vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have been found to be at least 70% effective.
The G20 Leaders’ Summit was presented virtually this year due to the pandemic and was hosted by Saudi Arabia with the participation of the world’s leaders.
The two-day conference ended on Sunday, its organizers hailed it as a success. Following this success, the Kingdom handed over G20 presidency to Italy as Riyadh summit concluded.
The two-day summit, the 15th meeting of the forum, has allowed leaders of economies to come together and discuss the most challenging socioeconomic issues, including finding a response to the pandemic and its challenges.
“We underscore the urgent need to bring the spread of the virus under control,” the leaders of the G-20 nations said in the communique.
“We have seen very clear signs but also actions by the G-20 supporting multilateralism,” Mohammed al-Jadaan, Saudi Arabia’s finance minister, said during a news conference at the summit’s conclusion.
“We hope that Italy will crystallize this idea with the aim of supporting joint international coordination and intensifying the role, to come up with policies and initiatives to meet any challenges and determine the economic and well-being of our peoples,” the crown prince said.
The crown prince stressed on the importance of cooperation in standing against the outbreak of COVID-19, and its health, economic, and social repercussions.
The G20 leaders also promised to “spare no effort” to ensure the fair distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and medicines worldwide.
“We are taking immediate and exceptional measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic and its intertwined health, social and economic impacts, including through the implementation of unprecedented fiscal, monetary and financial stability actions,” the statement said.
