Iran
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News & Reports
‘Free to Think 2023’: A Year of Bombings and Other Attacks on Higher Education
A new report from Scholars at Risk’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project examines efforts to restrict free discourse in both authoritarian…
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News & Reports
Al-Fanar Media Re-Launches Its Website with a New Visual Identity
With a new visual identity, Al-Fanar Media re-launches its website to give readers a better, more-interactive way of experiencing news…
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News & Reports
![Editor’s Note: This article was published by Science|Business, a publication that informs and brings together Europe’s top stakeholders in industry, research and policy. Read the full article on the site of Al-Fanar Media partner Science|Business here. The severe economic shock of the pandemic is the latest and possibly sharpest test yet of the Sesame synchrotron’s admirable survival skills. The region’s only high-energy physics lab is back in operation after a partial easing of the lockdown in Jordan, where it is based. Sesame—Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East—is the first major international research centre in the region, run by physicists from an unlikely group of countries, some of which are in mutual conflict. Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, Palestine and Turkey are the founder members. After years of doubts about the project’s feasibility, Sesame began operating in 2017. “There’s been many times when a rational person would have given up,” said Chris Llewellyn Smith, a British physicist and former president of the Sesame council, the governing body of the facility. (See a related article “In a Fractious Region, a New Physics Facility Fosters Collaboration.”) The darker economic environment caused by the pandemic is just the latest challenge, he said, following years of walking a political and technical tightrope. “It’s always been very difficult—many of these [member] countries, you can’t find their science budgets with a microscope. The funds involved in Sesame are huge for some of them.” Read more.](https://i0.wp.com/www.al-fanarmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/sesame-covid-1.jpg?resize=390%2C220&ssl=1)
The Middle East’s Only High-Energy Physics Lab Faces a New Test: Surviving Covid-19
Sesame, the region’s only synchrotron, is well versed in upheaval. But the pandemic promises more pressure on the project’s shoestring…
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News & Reports
Public Health Experts Are Often Missing From Arab World’s Coronavirus Battle
Public health researchers in the wealthier Arab countries say they’ve been working with governments for months. But the region’s poorest,…
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News & Reports
Coronavirus Fears Shut Down Universities and Schools in the Arab World
Several countries have closed educational institutions and others are restricting school activities in an attempt to limit the spread of…
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Opinion
The Light Inside the Tunnel
A slight twist on an old saying can help those discouraged by the situation in the Arab world, says an…
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News & Reports
Ambitious But Secretive Arab Education Provider: Iran
Iranian universities are reaching out to the Arab world but are silent about their motives, creating suspicion in many quarters.
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News & Reports
U.S. Travel Ban Temporarily Halted Amid Global Outcry
The president’s executive order has provoked criticism from U.S. academics, but little debate in the Arab world.
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News & Reports
U.S. Selective Ban on Visas Shuts Out Arab Students
President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily blocking the citizens of seven countries from entering the United States could ultimately affect…
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