Jume Tahir, imam of the biggest mosque in China’s western Xinjiang region was killed after Fajr prayers on July 31 in continuing violence to hit the Muslim-majority frontier region.
Tahir, (79), imam of the Id Kah “ a more than 500-year-old mosque that sits at the centre of the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, in Xinjiang’s far west and is one of the region’s most important mosques “ was attacked by suspects armed with knives and axes. Tahir, from Xinjiang’s native Uighur ethnic minority group, was the government-appointed imam at the mosque. The assassins were later shot dead for resisting arrests.
Three suspects were named as Turghun Tursun, Memetjan Remutillan and Nurmemet Abidilimit, who are all Uighurs. Officials said they were “influenced by religious extremism” and “planned to do something big to increase their influence”.
Sayeeda Warsi, first ever female Muslim Minister in the British cabinet resigned from the David Cameron’s Government on August 6 dubbing the British foreign policy towards Gaza invasion by Israel morally indefensible. She held the Social and Religious Affairs portfolio. Warsi asked the Prime Minister to strike balance in the nation’s foreign policies. Baroness Warsi had urged stopping the genocide of innocent citizens in Gaza by the Israeli forces on Twitter. In her brutally critical resignation letter Baroness Warsi told the Prime Minister she wanted to be “able to live with myself for the decisions I took or the decisions I supported. By staying in Government at this time I do not feel I can be sure of that”
Prof. Shafeeque Ahmed Ansari of Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Basic Science (CIRBS), Jamia Millia Islamia has been nominated on the Board of an international journal Scientific Reports from Nature Publishing Group. The journal Scientific Reports was launched in 2011 as a multidisciplinary, online-only, open access publication covering all areas of the natural sciences. It doesn’t set a threshold of perceived importance to the papers that it publishes; rather it publishes all papers that are judged to be technically valid. Nature Publishing Group brings 140 years of experience in the communication and publication of scientific research to the open access arena.
Iranian Science Minister Voted Out: Iran’s parliament voted to dismiss the science minister, dealing a blow to reformist President Hassan Rouhani. The motion to sack Reza Faraji-Dana, whose responsibilities included the country’s universities, was backed by 145 of the 270 lawmakers present.
Conservatives had been angered by his decision to let students expelled from university after the anti-government unrest in 2009 return to campus. Mr Rouhani had backed the minister.
Mr Faraji-Dana was also accused of nominating for senior department positions people who were involved in the mass opposition protests that followed the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, which the authorities considered a “plot”.
Critics said he had tolerated student publications that questioned Islamic teachings and promoted sedition and riots.
President Rouhani was elected last year on promises of greater openness and diplomatic engagement with the West.
In a speech on state TV, he praised the work of Mr Faraji-Dana, whom he described as a “polite and knowledgeable minister”, but said he would comply with the result vote to preserve national unity.of Wednesday’s vote to preserve national unity.
Top Math Award for Maryam Mirzakhani.
Maryam Mirzakhani, the Iranian born mathematician has become the first woman to win the Fields Medal in Mathematics, one of the most prestigious awards in mathematics. Having excelled in mathematics at B.Sc at Sharif University of Technology of Tehran, Maryam had won gold medals in International Mathematical Olympiad at 1994 at Hong Kong and 1995 in Toronto. She has been serving as professor of mathematics at Stanford University in the United States. The Awards Committee of the Fields Award cited her work in understanding the symmetry of curved surfaces.
Field Medal is considered to be Nobel Prize of Mathematics and is awarded after every four years. She was presented the Award at Seoul at the International Congress of Mathematicians. Fields medal was instituted by Canadian mathematician John Fields. The winners are presented 15,000 Canadian dollars with the medal. Maryam was born in Tehran in 1979. She is married to Jan Vodrak, a Czech theoretical computer scientist who works at IBM Almaden Research Center. Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields medal in 2014 for ‘her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces.
Women Physicist of the Month Award
Dr. Ibtesam Saeed Badhrees, a leading woman research scientist in experimental particle physics at the National Center for Nanotechnology, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) Riyadh, has been selected as the first non-American woman for ‘Women Physicist of the Month’ award for August 2014 given by the American Physical Society (APS). “APS, the world’s second largest organization for physicists with a non-profit membership, has chosen Dr. Badhrees as the first non-American woman-physicist to be granted the ‘Woman Physicist of the Month’ for August 2014 for her enriching role and positive impact on the physics community,”. Ibtesam Saeed Badhrees, a leading research scientist in experimental particle physics, is not only a distinguished fellow of New Westminster College, but also the first Saudi woman with a PhD
to work in the National Center for Mathematics and Physics at KACST.
“Her role with CERN, the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics, as the first and only Saudi woman to join the organization as a user researcher in 2006 is notable. CERN, the European organization for nuclear research, is headquartered in Geneva. Dr. Badhrees has received many awards throughout her career and gained much recognition including the Saudi Arabian cultural mission academic excellence award in 1996, 1997 and 2007.
UAE Child Prodigy among World’s 8 Medical Whiz-Kids
Dubai: CNN has selected UAE’s young inventor Adeeb Al Blooshi, 10, as one of the world’s eight most impressive young medical pioneers. In its ‘Vital Signs’ programme, a monthly programme bringing viewers health stories from around the world, the CNN spoke about eight whiz-kids who will shape the future of medicine. On the Dubai-based young mind, it said: ”It was a trip to the beach that sparked Adeeb Alblooshi’s inventing career. When his father, who had suffered from polio,- could not go swimming because of his prosthetic leg, Adeeb, then six, made him a waterproof alternative using an enhanced medical wax coating. “Soon after, he created a small vibrating robot to help his mother clean small spaces. It wasn’t long before the media, and subsequently the Dubai government, came calling. ”With the government’s supervision and funding, he’s come up with five more inventions since then, including a seat belt that monitors a passenger’s heart rate and alerts the authorities when it’s too high or low,” the CNN report said.
”Since April, he’s been on an international scientific tour with the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology, which has had him attending academic conferences, meeting with researchers, and even attending space camp at the US Space and Rocket Center in Alabama.” “I’ve learned a lot, but most importantly, I’m having fun while doing it,” he says. (www.ummid.com)
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