DUBAI: The UAE has become a global leader in gender balance because of the confidence the country’s leaders have shown in the abilities and potential of women, delegates at the eighth Dubai International Project Management Forum heard on Wednesday.
Mona Ghanem Al-Marri, vice president of the UAE Gender Balance Council, told the forum that the leadership’s vision for the empowerment of women ensures that they are considered equal participants and major contributors to sustainable development efforts in the nation.

RAMALLAH: Israeli forces on Wednesday shot dead a 21-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, while a boy wounded in clashes at a refugee camp in East Jerusalem died from his injuries.

Aref Lahlouh, from the Jenin refugee camp, was with his mother and brother near the Kedumim settlement, east of Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank, when he was killed. His body was then seized by Israeli troops.

Israel’s media claimed that Lahlouh had been carrying a knife for an attack.

IRBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan: Iran’s currency has been hitting record lows against the US dollar, which observers say is a reflection of the regime’s increasing isolation on the international stage and the seriousness of the new EU sanctions against its paramilitary enforcer, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

RAMALLAH: The Israeli government is planning unprecedented settlement activities in the West Bank, including the building of 18,000 housing units in the coming months, an Israeli newspaper revealed on Wednesday.
The move, which is seen as a serious threat to the Palestinians, was described by the Israeli newspaper Israel Today as a “revolution in Israeli politics in the West Bank” and a “mini-annexation.”
Under Israel’s One Million Settlers plan, approval will be given to thousands of settlements put on hold during the past two-and-a-half years.

ALEPPO, Syria: At 2:30 a.m. on January 22, Sheikh Maksoud, a Kurdish-majority neighborhood in Syria’s Aleppo, was struck by tragedy. A five-story residential building collapsed, burying dozens of residents under a mountain of rubble.

After round-the-clock rescue efforts, 16 bodies were recovered and two survivors were brought to the neighborhood’s hospital for treatment. According to state media, the structure’s foundations had been weakened by water leakage.