From a farm in Yemen to global science sensation, the journey of Peshawar University graduate

The undated photo shows Hashem Al-Ghaili delivering a Ted Talk. (Photo courtesy: Universum Bremen)
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Updated 11 April 2023
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From a farm in Yemen to global science sensation, the journey of Peshawar University graduate

  • Al-Ghaili’s father expected him to work on their qat farm in Yemen, brushing away any dissent
  • Today, the 27-year-old has an army of fans avidly following his online mini-films explaining science

LONDON: Hashem Al-Ghaili has come a long way from his family’s qat farm in northern Yemen, he now communicates complex theories of physics to millions of followers.

As a young boy growing up in northern Yemen, Al-Ghaili already knew he wanted to be a scientist — but his father had other ideas.

Al-Ghaili senior grows qat, the mildly narcotic herb beloved of Yemenis and the people of the Horn of Africa, and he expected Hashem, 10th of his 12 children, to work on the farm with him. Indeed he demanded it, brushing away any dissent.

“I tried because it is very difficult in Yemen to go against your parents’ wishes, but in the end I had to follow my dream,” said Al-Ghaili.

Today, Al-Ghaili, 27, is a scientist and a media star with an army of fans avidly following his online mini-films in which he explains science to non-scientists.

He began posting occasional videos with a commentary in 2009. He taught himself graphics and editing and launched a Facebook page, just to share with friends. The group continued to grow and by the end of 2015, he had acquired 66,000 followers. Now he has 24 million followers globally and has racked up a staggering eight billion views on Facebook.

What began as a hobby made him a science superstar. But despite his natural ability, it hasn’t been easy.

His communication skills were evident at school where he would read aloud to the class “and explain things.” He was six.

At age 16 when he graduated from high school, he secretly applied for a government scholarship to study abroad. He had to go to the capital, Sanaa, to fill out the paperwork and made the six-hour journey without telling his father.

“I called him from Sanaa and he was really upset.” Angry, upset or disappointed? “I’d say angry. But I told him I was going to do this against all odds and he realized then that there was nothing he could do.”

Al-Ghaili secured the scholarship, but that didn’t mean he could study the subject he wanted at the university of his choice.

“People with connections get places in Europe and America. The rest of us get the leftovers and even then, the computer randomly chooses for you. I requested physics in Egypt or Jordan and I got biotechnology in Pakistan.”

Another shock awaited him when he arrived at the University of Peshawar and realized that his schoolboy English was not good enough to follow the tutorials and there was no language course he could sign up for that could bring him up to the required level. Undeterred, he set about teaching himself English from online tutorials that he was able to watch after borrowing money to buy a laptop.

“Peshawar wasn’t a very safe place back in 2008 so I wasn’t going out much. Within three months I was ready,” he said.

He graduated with a first-class degree and was appointed the university’s ambassador to Yemen.

He then applied for a scholarship to study for a master’s degree in Germany and became one of only five applicants out of 1,070 to be awarded a scholarship.

“So I had the scholarship, but to get the visa I had to have a place at a university, which I didn’t. But I couldn’t risk missing my chance,”

He arrived in Dresden, Germany, and spent five months learning German and applying to universities.

“I sent off 70 applications in one day. Most didn’t reply at all, a few said applications were closed and one replied saying: ‘Let’s talk.’”

That was Professor Sebastian Springer of Jacobs University, an English-language institution in Bremen, northern Germany, which has students from around 80 countries.

“DAAD (the scholarship-awarding body) made a strong recommendation for his exceptional communication abilities and his extraordinary dedication,” said Prof. Springer.

“In my interview, Hashem came across as a very dedicated and professional person who spoke excellent English and his gift of communication was already very clear.”

But a further shock awaited Al-Ghaili in Bremen, the course he had studied in Pakistan had been more theoretical. “I didn’t know how to conduct experiments or how to use the equipment. I was devastated.”

He confided his concerns to Prof. Springer. “He said he knew I was worried, and if I had not come to him, he would have known I was not serious about my studies. He said, ‘I’m here to help you.’ He was so supportive and I owe him a lot. I got the hang of the practical work and in the end I excelled at it.”

After he got a top grade in his master’s degree he was chosen to give the students’ speech at the graduation ceremony. He embarked on a doctorate, but gave it up after three months as his communicator role gradually took precedence over his science.

“I couldn’t do both and I realized I was better at the communicating.”

The online comments he gets bear this out. Many are of the “Wow, this is awesome!” variety. In response to a film about the history of the universe, from birth to now, one wrote: “This was the most amazing and educational six minutes and 11 seconds of my life.”

Al-Ghaili says he chooses topics that interest him or that could be useful.

“It might be a medical breakthrough or something to do with the environment, or correcting misconceptions about GM [genetically modified] foods or vaccines or climate change.”

Inevitably, he has faced criticism from Internet trolls calling him a fake and saying he should be arrested. He no longer reads the comments.

“I can’t screen hundreds of thousands of them. I only read them if they require intervention. I don’t care about the personal comments, but I won’t have them spreading misinformation.”

A particularly proud moment for him came two years after he got his master’s when he was invited on to a discussion panel with Randy Schekman, Nobel laureate in medicine, a powerful illustration of how far he has come.

His determination has also paid off for others as three siblings, including two sisters, have also gone to university. His brother has been studying business administration in Malaysia, one sister is a journalist and poet and the other is studying economics.

He is especially pleased for his sisters. “Women in Yemen are trained to accept what others decide for them. They don’t even know their rights. My dad is very proud now and convinced about education. He keeps track of everything I do. We speak every week.”

He lives in Berlin describing the city as “a great central hub for start-ups and collaboration,” but woefully lacking in Yemeni restaurants: “I mean, there’s not a single one anywhere in all of Germany!”

He now has four people to help him with sourcing video, editing and writing scripts. But nothing goes through without his approval. His current big project is “Simulation,” a science fiction short film he has written, directed and funded and intends to show at film festivals and then sell online.

He has not seen his family since 2013 and as the war rages on in Yemen he has no idea when he will. Doing what he does from Yemen would be difficult. “Talking about things like the Big Bang can get you into trouble,” he said.

But he feels a responsibility to represent his country well and longs to see it flourish.

“Being rich can make you a bit lazy,” he said. “Yemen is a poor country, but we have creative people.”
 


Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive

Updated 11 sec ago
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Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive

  • The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor
  • Militants cut highway linking Aleppo to capital Damascus on Thursday

BEIRUT: Militants and their Turkish-backed allies shelled Syria’s second city Aleppo on Friday, in a major offensive against government troops that has sparked some of the deadliest fighting the country has seen in years.

The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor, most of them combatants on both sides but also including civilians, including 24 dead, most of them in Russian air strikes.

The offensive began at a sensitive time for Syria and the region, with a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel taking effect earlier this week in neighboring Lebanon.

Syria’s civil war began when President Bashar Assad’s forces cracked down in 2011 on pro-democracy protests.

Since then, it has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.

Over the years, the conflict has morphed into a complex war drawing in militants and foreign powers, including Assad allies Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

While the army regained control over most of the territory that it lost earlier in the war, the area where the militants and their allies are based has been subject to a truce since 2020.

This week, militants and factions backed by Turkiye, which neighbors Syria and supported the anti-Assad rebellion, launched a major surprise offensive against government forces.

On Friday, they shelled a university student residence in government-held Aleppo, northern Syria’s main city, according to state media, which reported four civilian deaths in the latest attack.

By Friday, they had wrested more than 50 towns and villages in northern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the biggest advances that anti-government factions had made in years.

The fighters had on Thursday cut the highway linking Aleppo to Syria’s capital Damascus, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

“The highway has now been put out of service, after it was reopened by regime forces years ago,” said the monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “more than 14,000 people — nearly half are children — have been displaced” by the violence.

At a press conference earlier this week, Mohamed Bashir of the militant Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) said: “This operation aims to repel the sources of fire of the criminal enemy from the frontlines.”

HTS, led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swathes of the northwest Idlib region as well as small parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire, repeatedly violated but which had largely been holding, brokered by Turkiye and Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.

An AFP correspondent based in rebel-held areas said there were intense exchanges of fire in an area just seven kilometers (four miles) from the city of Aleppo.

HTS has close ties with Turkish-backed factions, and analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy said the fighters were “trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the region of Aleppo.”

According to Heras, the Syrian government and its key backer Russia had been preparing for such a campaign.

Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015, turning the momentum of the conflict in favor of the president, whose forces at the time had lost control of most of country.

Turkiye, Heras said, may be “sending a message to both Damascus and Moscow to back down from their military efforts in northwest Syria.”

Other interests are also at stake.

As well as Russia, Assad has been propped up by Iran and allied militant groups, including Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah.

Anti-government forces are, according to Heras, “in a better position to take and seize villages than Russian-backed Syrian government forces, while the Iranians are focused on Lebanon.”

A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in Syria on Thursday during the fighting, an Iranian news agency reported.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the deadly offensive was “part of a plan by the diabolical regime (Israel) and the US” and called for “firm and coordinated action to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region.”

During its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel intensified its strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria including Hezbollah.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Observatory, said Assad’s forces “were totally unprepared” for the attack.

“It is strange to see regime forces being dealt such big blows despite Russian air cover and early signs that HTS was going to launch this operation,” Abdel Rahman said.

“Were they depending on Hezbollah, which is now busy in Lebanon?”


Israeli tanks retreat from central Gaza camp, medics say 30 killed

Updated 15 min 1 sec ago
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Israeli tanks retreat from central Gaza camp, medics say 30 killed

  • Some tanks remained active in the western area of the camp
  • Freed Palestinians, detained during the war, have complained of ill-treatment and torture

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians overnight in the Gaza Strip, most of them in the Nuseirat camp at the centre of the enclave, medics said on Friday after some tanks pulled back from an area they had raided.
Medics said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in the northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave's eight long-standing refugee camps.
Some tanks remained active in the western area of the camp and the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped inside their houses.
The rest were killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, medics added. There was no fresh statement by the Israeli military on Friday, but on Thursday it said its forces were continuing to "strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip".
Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities released around 30 Palestinians whom it had detained during the ongoing offensive in Gaza in the past months. The released people arrived at a hospital in southern Gaza for medical checkups, medics said.
Freed Palestinians, detained during the war, have complained of ill-treatment and torture in Israeli detention after they were released. Israel denies torture.
Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.
A ceasefire in the parallel conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, took effect before dawn on Wednesday, bringing a halt to hostilities that had escalated sharply in recent months and had overshadowed the Gaza conflict.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,200 people and displaced nearly all the enclave's population at least once, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.
The Hamas-led militants who attacked southern Israeli communities 13 months ago, triggering the war, killed some 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, Israel has said.


France envoy urges Lebanon to pick president

Updated 26 min 37 sec ago
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France envoy urges Lebanon to pick president

  • Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Lebanon follows a fragile ceasefire to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah
  • Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022

BEIRUT: France’s special envoy on Friday said it was urgent for Lebanon to elect a president, after a parliamentary vote to end over two years without a head of state was announced for January.
Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Lebanon follows a fragile ceasefire to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I came to Lebanon immediately after the ceasefire announcement to signal France’s support for its full implementation and to stress the urgent need, more than ever, to elect a president and restart the institutional process,” he said on Friday.
He said he was in support of Thursday’s announcement by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of a presidential election to be held on 9 January.
Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022, with neither of the two main blocs – the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its opponents – having the majority required to elect one.
However, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said in a wartime speech that Hezbollah would “bring an effective contribution to the election of a president.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Wednesday he hoped the ceasefire agreement would mark “a new page for Lebanon,” calling for a swift presidential election.
Le Drian held talks with Lebanese officials and foreign diplomats from the United States, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – countries working to address Lebanon’s presidential crisis.
The special envoy has visited Lebanon several times since being appointed to the position by French President Emmanuel Macron in June 2023.


Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive

Updated 46 min 23 sec ago
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Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive

  • The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor
  • The fighters had on Thursday cut the highway linking Aleppo to Syria’s capital Damascus

BEIRUT: Militants and their Turkish-backed allies shelled Syria’s second city Aleppo on Friday, in a major offensive against government troops that has sparked some of the deadliest fighting the country has seen in years.

The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor, most of them combatants on both sides but also including civilians, including 24 dead, most of them in Russian air strikes.

The offensive began at a sensitive time for Syria and the region, with a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel taking effect earlier this week in neighboring Lebanon.

Syria’s civil war began when President Bashar Assad’s forces cracked down in 2011 on pro-democracy protests.

Since then, it has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.

Over the years, the conflict has morphed into a complex war drawing in militants and foreign powers, including Assad allies Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

While the army regained control over most of the territory that it lost earlier in the war, the area where the militants and their allies are based has been subject to a truce since 2020.

This week, militants and factions backed by Turkiye, which neighbors Syria and supported the anti-Assad rebellion, launched a major surprise offensive against government forces.

On Friday, they shelled a university student residence in government-held Aleppo, northern Syria’s main city, according to state media, which reported four civilian deaths in the latest attack.

By Friday, they had wrested more than 50 towns and villages in northern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the biggest advances that anti-government factions had made in years.

The fighters had on Thursday cut the highway linking Aleppo to Syria’s capital Damascus, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

“The highway has now been put out of service, after it was reopened by regime forces years ago,” said the monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “more than 14,000 people — nearly half are children — have been displaced” by the violence.

At a press conference earlier this week, Mohamed Bashir of the militant Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) said: “This operation aims to repel the sources of fire of the criminal enemy from the frontlines.”

HTS, led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swathes of the northwest Idlib region as well as small parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire, repeatedly violated but which had largely been holding, brokered by Turkiye and Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.

An AFP correspondent based in rebel-held areas said there were intense exchanges of fire in an area just seven kilometers (four miles) from the city of Aleppo.

HTS has close ties with Turkish-backed factions, and analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy said the fighters were “trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the region of Aleppo.”

According to Heras, the Syrian government and its key backer Russia had been preparing for such a campaign.

Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015, turning the momentum of the conflict in favor of the president, whose forces at the time had lost control of most of country.

Turkiye, Heras said, may be “sending a message to both Damascus and Moscow to back down from their military efforts in northwest Syria.”

Other interests are also at stake.

As well as Russia, Assad has been propped up by Iran and allied militant groups, including Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah.

Anti-government forces are, according to Heras, “in a better position to take and seize villages than Russian-backed Syrian government forces, while the Iranians are focused on Lebanon.”

A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in Syria on Thursday during the fighting, an Iranian news agency reported.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the deadly offensive was “part of a plan by the diabolical regime (Israel) and the US” and called for “firm and coordinated action to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region.”

During its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel intensified its strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria including Hezbollah.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Observatory, said Assad’s forces “were totally unprepared” for the attack.

“It is strange to see regime forces being dealt such big blows despite Russian air cover and early signs that HTS was going to launch this operation,” Abdel Rahman said.

“Were they depending on Hezbollah, which is now busy in Lebanon?”


Israeli military says Lebanese prohibited from moving south to several villages

Updated 29 November 2024
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Israeli military says Lebanese prohibited from moving south to several villages

  • Israel opened fire on Thursday toward what it called ‘suspects’ with vehicles arriving at several areas in the southern zone

DUBAI: Lebanese residents are prohibited from moving south to a line of villages and their surroundings until further notice, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X on Friday.
Israel said it opened fire on Thursday toward what it called “suspects” with vehicles arriving at several areas in the southern zone, saying it was a breach of the truce with Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, which came into effect on Wednesday.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah in turn accused Israel of violating the deal.
“The Israeli enemy is attacking those returning to the border villages,” Fadlallah told reporters, adding “there are violations today by Israel, even in this form.”
The Israeli military also said on Thursday the air force struck a facility used by Hezbollah to store mid-range rockets in southern Lebanon, the first such attack since the ceasefire took effect on Wednesday morning.
In his recent post, Adraee called on Lebanese residents to not return to more than 60 southern villages, saying anyone who moves south of the specified line “puts themselves in danger.”
The Lebanese army earlier accused Israel of violating the ceasefire several times on Wednesday and Thursday.
The exchange of accusations highlighted the fragility of the ceasefire, which was brokered by the United States and France to end the conflict, fought in parallel with the Gaza war. The truce lasts for 60 days in the hope of reaching a permanent cessation of hostilities.