WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Thursday underlined his support for the legal “status quo” of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound in a meeting at the White House with Jordanian King Abdullah II.
Biden, the king and Crown Prince Hussein had a private lunch in which the US president “reaffirmed the close, enduring nature of the friendship between the United States and Jordan,” the White House said.

UNITED NATIONS: Under pressure from Afghanistan’s Taliban administration, the United Nations is delivering some food aid using men only, prompting warnings from donors and humanitarian groups that it could be seen as giving in to an internationally condemned ban on most female aid workers.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths acknowledged to reporters this week that women are not involved in some food aid activities, which the World Food Programme described as “operational adjustments” to allow it to continue its work, and he said the situation was inadequate.

DUBAI: The second Emirati to journey into space, martial arts enthusiast Sultan AlNeyadi, weighed up Thursday performing Ramadan in orbit — and promised to pack his jiu-jitsu suit for the ride.
AlNeyadi, 41, dubbed the “Sultan of Space” by his alma mater, will blast off on February 26 for the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
During his six months in orbit — a record time for any Arab astronaut — AlNeyadi said he would like to observe the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims typically fast from dawn to sunset.

CAIRO: Researchers have unlocked the secrets of the mummification process used in ancient Egypt, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said.

A team of researchers from Ludwig Maximilian and Tubingen universities in Germany, in cooperation with the National Research Center in Cairo, set out to study materials used by ancient Egyptian embalmers.

Specialists analyzed organic remains found inside pottery pots discovered in a mummification workshop unearthed by the Egyptian-German archaeological mission led by Ramadan Badri in Saqqara in 2018.

AL-MUKALLA: Five Yemeni policewomen were appointed to key security posts for the first time in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz, sparking excitement among gender equality advocates and the media.

The five were given roles at sites and police stations in the Taiz Security Department as part of a security overhaul that saw the appointment of 12 new security heads, said local officials.

The appointments were intended to empower women in security roles as part of a push to end the disorder and lawlessness that has plagued Taiz for years.