Saudi educator known for charity and prisoner work wins $1 million Global Teacher Prize
Al-Mansour is the ninth teacher to win the award from the foundation, which first began handing out the prize in 2015.
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Past winners have included a Kenyan teacher from a remote village who gave away most of his earnings to the poor, a Palestinian primary school teacher who teaches her students about non-violence and a Canadian educator who taught a remote Arctic village of Inuit students.
GEMS Education, or Global Education Management Systems, is one of the world's largest private school operators and is believed to be worth billions. Its success has followed that of Dubai, where only private schools offer classes for the children of the foreigners who power its economy.
GEMS plans to open a school later this year targeting the children of the ultra-wealthy families now moving to booming, skyscraper-studded Dubai.
The Gems School of Research and Innovation in Dubai, which is planned to have a robotics lab, an Olympic-size swimming pool and an elevated football pitch that doubles as a helipad, will charge fees running from $31,000 for students in pre-K and kindergarten to $56,000 for high-school seniors.
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Forbes
29 minutes ago
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Saudi Arabia, Turkey And Syrian Reconstruction
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Leading a delegation of roughly 120 government officials and business leaders, Investment Minister Khalid al-Falih traveled to Damascus to attend the inaugural Syrian–Saudi Investment Forum. The two-day event held July 23–24, yielded 47 agreements spanning energy, infrastructure, telecommunications, real estate, agriculture, and banking. Riyadh's decision to invest—at such scale and in what remains an active battlespace—came just three weeks after the United States lifted sanctions on Syria, a policy shift President Donald Trump announced during his mid-May visit to Saudi Arabia, his first major international trip of his second term. Saudi Arabia and Turkey form the two pillars of the Trump administration's strategy for managing the Middle East—an approach rooted in the president's broader geostrategic approach that allies and partners should take the lead in ensuring the security and prosperity of their respective regions. As the region's center of gravity, Syria is a country Washington seeks to steer toward stability. This priority was underscored by Trump's decision to meet with Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa—a man who, until 2017, led al-Qaeda in his country. The meeting, hosted by Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) and attended virtually by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reflected the high stakes and regional coordination driving U.S. policy. Under Erdogan, Turkey has long supported different Islamist factions to further its strategic interests, especially the goal of countering Kurdish separatism on its southeastern periphery. Ankara has actually had close ties with Sharaa's ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) since its inception in 2017. For Saudi Arabia, however, this marks the first time it has supported a government dominated by an Islamist movement. The magnitude of this policy shift is highlighted by the fact that Riyadh had fully restored diplomatic relations with the now-ousted Assad regime just three months before its overthrow by HTS. Several factors explain this dramatic shift. First, Riyadh had not anticipated the Assad regime's collapse as a byproduct of Iran's weakening in its conflict with Israel. In fact, even as Iran and its premier proxy, Hezbollah, were being eroded through much of 2024, the Saudis appointed their first ambassador to Damascus in 12 years—capping a year-long diplomatic process that included former President Bashar al-Assad's visit to Riyadh in May 2023. In a sense, by normalizing ties with Syria, the kingdom was fortuitously positioned to engage with the new HTS-led government. Second, and more strategically, the Saudis were keen not to miss the historic opportunity presented by regime change in Damascus, which effectively ended Iran's domination of Syria. 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Blackwater founder to deploy nearly 200 personnel to Haiti as gang violence soars
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New Settlement ‘Buries the Idea of a Palestinian State,' Says Israeli Minister
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