title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2014, another prominent activist, Loujain Al Hathloul, was arrested by Saudi police after crossing the UAE-Saudi border in her car. Although she had a valid UAE license, she was still arrested. She was detained in 2018. After being badly treated while detained and facing more than a year's delay in the start of her legal process, Loujain al-Hathloul, along with other women's rights activists, attended a hearing with the Saudi court on February 12, 2020. Al-Hathloul was also reportedly tortured by the prison authorities while in solitary confinement. By May 15, 2020, al-Hathloul had been detained for two years. Her trial date was pushed back ‘indefinitely’ due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and her family has also been barred from seeing her amid the outbreak.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In October 2020, al-Hathloul started a second hunger strike demanding her right to contact her family members. Earlier, she went on a hunger strike in August for six days, demanding that her parents be allowed to see her at the Al-Ha'ir prison. She was released in February 2021. However, al-Hathloul is banned from leaving the country.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Women have limited access to bus and train services. Where women have access to public transport, they must use a separate entrance and sit in a back section reserved for women. In early 2010, the government began considering a proposal to create a nationwide women-only bus system. Activists are divided on the proposal; some say it will reduce sexual harassment and transportation expenses while helping to facilitate women entering the workforce; others criticize it as an escape from the real issue of recognizing women's right to drive.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Careem started business in Saudi Arabia in 2013, and Uber arrived in the country in 2014. Women account for 80% of their passengers. The Saudi government has also supported these initiatives as a means of reducing unemployment and, in its Saudi Vision 2030 initiative, has invested equity in both companies. Vehicle for Hire has improved mobility for women and also promoted employment participation with its improved transport flexibility.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: To support working women, the Saudi government has launched the program, which provides transportation services to the Saudi working women.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with a Consultative Assembly (shura) of lawmakers appointed by the king. Prior to a September 2011 announcement by King Abdullah, only men 30 years of age and older could serve as lawmakers. As of 2011, women can be appointed to the Consultative Assembly. Women first joined the Consultative Assembly in January 2013, occupying thirty seats.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2013, three women were named as deputy chairpersons of three committees: was named deputy chairwoman of the Human Rights and Petitions Committee, Zainab Abu Talib was named deputy chairwoman of the Information and Cultural Committee;,and Lubna Al-Ansari was named deputy chairwoman of the Health Affairs and Environment Committee. Another major appointment occurred in April 2012, when Muneera bint Hamdan Al Osaimi was appointed assistant undersecretary in the medical services affairs department at the Ministry of Health.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Women could neither vote nor run for office in the country's first municipal elections in 2005, or in the 2011 election cycle. They campaigned for the right to vote in the 2011 municipal elections, attempting unsuccessfully to register as voters. In September 2011, King Abdullah announced that women would be allowed to vote and run for office in the 2015 municipal elections. Although King Abdullah was no longer alive at the time of the 2015 municipal elections, women were allowed to vote and stand as candidates for the first time in the country's history. Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi was the first female elected official in the country. According to unofficial results released to The Associated Press, a total of 20 female candidates were elected to the approximately 2,100 municipal council seats being contested, which made them the first women elected to municipal councils in the country's history.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Women are allowed to hold position on boards of chambers of commerce. In 2008, two women were elected to the board of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. There are no women on the High Court or the Supreme Judicial Council. There is one woman in a cabinet-level position as deputy minister for women's education; she was appointed in February 2009. In 2010, the government announced female lawyers would be allowed to represent women in family cases. In 2013, Saudi Arabia registered its first female trainee lawyer, Arwa al-Hujaili.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In court, the testimony of one man equals that of two women. In court proceedings, women generally must deputize male relatives to speak on their behalf.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In February 2019, Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud was appointed as the Saudi ambassador to the US. She became the first female envoy in the history of the Kingdom. As of 2021, there are three female diplomats who are serving as Saudi ambassadors.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: At age 15, male Saudis are issued identity cards they are required to carry at all times. Before the 21st century, women were not issued cards but instead were named as dependents on their 's (usually their father's or husband's) ID card, so that, "strictly speaking," they were not allowed in public without their .


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: At the time, it was difficult for women to prove their identity in court; in addition to lacking ID cards, women could not own passports or driver's licenses. Women had to produce two male relations to confirm their identity. If a man denied that the woman in court was his relative, "the man's word would normally be taken," wrote author Harvey North. This system made women vulnerable to false claims on their property and violation of inheritance rights.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The Ulema, Saudi's religious authorities, opposed the idea of issuing separate identity cards for women since non-s would see women's faces. Many other conservative Saudi citizens argue that cards, which show a woman's unveiled face, violate purdah and Saudi custom. However, women were eventually issued ID cards.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2001, a small number of ID cards were issued for women who had the permission of their . By 2006, women no longer needed male permission to obtain an ID card, and by 2013, ID cards became compulsory for women.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2008, women were allowed to enter hotels and furnished apartments without their if they had their national identification cards. In April 2010, a new, optional ID card for women was issued which allows them to travel in countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Women did not need male permission to apply for the card, but in 2010, they still needed male permission to travel abroad. As of 2019, Saudi women over 21 no longer need male permission to travel.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2005, the country's religious authority officially banned the practice of forced marriage. Despite this, Saudi Arabia maintained that a marriage contract is officially between the husband-to-be and the father of the bride-to-be. As of 2005, the bride's consent is needed in a marriage. No Saudi citizen can marry a non-Saudi citizen without official permission. In 2016, justice minister Walid al-Samaani announced that clerics who register marriage contracts would have to provide a copy to the bride "to ensure her awareness of her rights and the terms of the contract."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Polygyny is legal in Saudi Arabia, though it is on the decline due to demographic and economic reasons. Polyandry is forbidden.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The Kingdom prevents Saudi women from marrying male expatriates who test positive for drugs (including alcohol), incurable STDs, or genetic diseases, but does not stop Saudi men from marrying female expatriates with such problems.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2004, a popular television presenter, Rania al-Baz, was severely beaten by her husband. Photographs of her "bruised and swollen face" were published in the press. Her case brought light to domestic violence in Saudi Arabia. According to Al-Baz, her husband beat her after she answered the phone without his permission; he said he intended to kill her.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: State data, published in 2012, estimated that between 16 and 50% of married Saudi women suffer intimate partner violence. Domestic violence against women and children was not seen as a crime in Saudi Arabia until 2013. In 2008, the Prime Minister ordered that "social protection units", the Kingdom's version of women's shelters, be expanded. That year, the Prime Minister also ordered the government to draft a national strategy to deal with domestic violence. Some Saudi royal foundations, such as the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue and the King Khalid Foundation, have also led education and awareness efforts against domestic violence. Five years later, Saudi Arabia launched its first major effort against domestic violence: the "No More Abuse" ad campaign.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In August 2013, following a Twitter campaign, the Saudi cabinet approved a law making domestic violence a criminal offense for the first time. The law calls for a punishment of up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 50,000 riyals (US$13,000), with doubled maximum punishments for repeat offenders. The law criminalizes psychological and sexual abuse, as well as physical abuse. It also includes a provision obliging employees to report instances of abuse in the workplace to their employer. Saudi women's rights activist Suad Abu Dayyeh welcomed the new laws, although she believed law enforcement would need training on domestic abuse. She also said that, given the tradition of male guardianship, the law would be difficult to enforce.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2019, Saudi Arabia officially banned child marriages and set the minimum age for marriage as 18 years for both women and men. In 2013, the average age at first marriage for Saudi women was 25.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Senior clergy originally opposed the push to ban child marriage; they argued that a girl reaches adulthood at puberty. Most Saudi religious authorities have defended the marriage of girls as young as nine and boys as young as fifteen. However, they also believe that a father can marry off his prepubescent daughter so long as consummation is delayed until puberty. A 2009 think-tank report on women's education concluded "Early marriage (before 16 years)...negatively influences a woman's chance of employment and the economic status of the family. It also negatively affects her health as they are at greater risk of dying from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth." A 2004 United Nations report found that 16% of Saudi female teens were or had been married.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The government's Saudi Human Rights Commission condemned child marriage in 2009, calling it "a clear violation against children and their psychological, moral and physical rights." It recommended that marriage officials adhere to a minimum age of 17 for females and 18 for males. A 2010 news report documented the case of Shareefa, an abandoned child-bride. Shareefa was married to an 80-year-old man when she was 10. The deal was arranged by the girl's father in exchange for money against the wishes of her mother. Her husband divorced her a few months after the marriage without her knowledge and abandoned her at the age of 21. The mother is attempting legal action, arguing that "Shareefa is now 21, she has lost more than 10 years of her life, her chance for an education, a decent marriage and normal life. Who is going to take responsibility for what she has gone through?"


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2013, the Directorate General of Passports allowed Saudi women married to foreigners to sponsor their children so that the children can have residency permits () with their mothers named as the sponsors. also grant children the right to work in the private sector in Saudi Arabia while on the sponsorship of their mothers. They also allow mothers to bring their children living abroad back to Saudi Arabia if they have no criminal records. Foreign men married to Saudi women were also granted the right to work in the private sector while on the sponsorship of their wives on condition that the title on their should be written as "husband of a Saudi wife" and that they should have valid passports enabling them to return to their homes at any time.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Legally, children belong to their father, who has sole guardianship. If a divorce takes place, women may be granted custody of their young children until they reach the age of seven (for girls) and nine (for boys), although sometimes women gain custody of older children. Older children are often awarded to the father or the paternal grandparents. Saudi women cannot confer citizenship to children born to a foreign father.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The Quran states that daughters inherit half as much as sons. In some rural areas, some women may not receive inheritance, as they are considered to be dependents of their fathers or husbands. Marrying outside the tribe is also grounds for limiting women's inheritance in rural areas.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Under Sharia law, rape is punishable with any sentence from jail to execution. As there is no penal code in Saudi Arabia, there is no written law which specifically criminalizes rape or prescribes its punishment. The rape victim is often punished as well if she had first entered the rapist's company in violation of purdah. There is no prohibition against spousal or statutory rape. In April 2020, the Saudi Supreme Court abolished the flogging punishment from its court system, replacing it with jail time, fines, or both.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Migrant women, often working as domestic helpers, represent a particularly vulnerable group. Their living conditions are sometimes slave-like; they may experience physical violence and rape. In 2006, U.S. ambassador John Miller, Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said the forced labor of foreign female domestic workers was the most common kind of slavery in Saudi Arabia. Miller claimed human trafficking is a problem everywhere, but the number of foreign domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, coupled with loopholes in the system, cause many foreign workers to fall victim to abuse and torture.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Women, like men, may be subject to harassment by the country's religious police, the mutaween, in some cases including arbitrary arrest and physical punishments. A UN report cites a case in which two mutaween were charged with molesting a woman; the charges were dismissed on the grounds that mutaween are immune from prosecution.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In some cases, victims of sexual assault are punished for , or being alone with an unrelated male, prior to the assault. In the 2006 Qatif rape case, an 18-year-old victim of kidnapping and gang rape was sentenced by a Saudi court to six months in prison and 90 lashes. The judge ruled she violated laws on segregation of the sexes, as she was in an unrelated man's car at the time of the attack. She was also punished for trying to influence the court through the media. The Ministry of Justice defended the sentence, saying she committed adultery and "provoked the attack" because she was "indecently dressed." Her attackers were found guilty of kidnapping and were sentenced for prison terms ranging from two to ten years along with up to a thousand lashes.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: According to Human Rights Watch, one of the rapists filmed the assault with his mobile phone, but the judges refused to allow it as evidence. The victim told ABC News that her brother tried to kill her after the attack. The case attracted international attention: the United Nations criticized social attitudes and the system of male guardianship, both of which deter women from reporting crimes. The UN report argued that women are prevented from escaping abusive environments because of their lack of legal and economic independence. They are further oppressed, according to the UN, by practices surrounding divorce and child custody, the absence of laws criminalizing violence against women, and inconsistencies in the application of laws and procedures. The case prompted Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy to comment, "What kind of God would punish a woman for rape? That is a question that Muslims must ask of Saudi Arabia because unless we challenge the determinedly anti-women teachings of Islam in Saudi Arabia, that Kingdom will always get a free pass." In December 2007, King Abdullah pardoned the victim, but he did not agree that the judge had erred.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2009, the "Saudi Gazette" reported that a 23-year-old unmarried woman was sentenced to one year in prison and 100 lashes for adultery for taking a ride from a male stranger. She said she had been gang-raped, became pregnant, and tried unsuccessfully to abort the fetus. The flogging was postponed until after the delivery.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Many Saudi women's rights activists were arrested in the crackdown of May 15, 2018, and have been subjected to sexual violence and torture in prison. Currently, 13 women's rights activists are on trial and five of them are still in detention for defending women's rights.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Changes in the enforcement of Islamic code have influenced women's rights in Saudi Arabia. The Iranian Revolution in 1979 and September 11 attacks in 2001 had significant influence on Saudi cultural history and women's rights.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 1979, the revolution in Iran led to a fundamentalist resurgence in many parts of the Islamic world. Fundamentalists sought to repel Westernization, and governments sought to defend themselves against revolution. In Saudi Arabia, fundamentalists occupied the Grand Mosque (Masjid al-Haram) and demanded a more conservative state, including "an end of education of women." The government responded with stricter interpretations and enforcement of Islamic laws. Newspapers were discouraged from publishing images of women; the Interior Ministry discouraged women, including expatriates, from employment. Scholarships for women to study abroad were declined, and wearing the in public became mandatory.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In contrast, the September 11th, 2001 attacks against the United States precipitated a reaction against ultra-conservative Islamic sentiment; fifteen of the nineteen hijackers in the September 11 attacks came from Saudi Arabia. Since then, the mutaween have become less active, and reformists have been appointed to key government posts. The government says it has withdrawn support from schools deemed extremist and moderated school textbooks.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The government under King Abdullah was regarded as moderately progressive. It opened the country's first co-educational university, appointed the first female cabinet member, and prohibited domestic violence. Gender segregation was relaxed but remained the norm. Critics described the reform as far too slow, and often more symbolic than substantive. Conservative clerics successfully rebuffed attempts to outlaw child marriage. Women were not allowed to vote in the country's first municipal elections, although Abdullah supported a woman's right to drive and vote. The few female government officials have had minimal power. Norah Al-Faiz, the first female cabinet member, could not appear without her veil, appear on television, or talk to male colleagues except by videoconferencing. She opposes girls' school sports as premature.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The government has made international commitments to women's rights; it ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, with the proviso that the convention could not override Islamic law. However, government officials told the United Nations that there is no contradiction with Islam, and the degree of compliance between government commitments and practice is disputed. A 2009 report by the UN questioned whether any international law ratified by the government has ever been applied inside Saudi Arabia.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Dr. Maha Almuneef said, "There are small steps now. There are giant steps coming. But most Saudis have been taught the traditional ways. You can't just change the social order all at once."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Local and international women's groups have pushed Saudi governments for reform, taking advantage of the fact that some rulers are eager to project a more progressive image to the West. The presence of powerful businesswomen, who are still rare, in some of these groups helped to increase women's representation in Saudi Arabian government and society.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Lubna Olayan, the CEO of Olayan Financing Company, is a well-known advocate for women's rights. She was the first woman to address a mixed-gender business audience in Saudi Arabia, speaking at the Jeddah Economic Forum in 2004. She used the occasion to advocate for economic equality:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "My vision is of a country with a prosperous and diversified economy in which any Saudi citizen, irrespective of gender, who is serious about finding employment, can find a job in the field for which he or she is best qualified, leading to a thriving middle class and in which all Saudi citizens, residents or visitors to the country feel safe and can live in an atmosphere where mutual respect and tolerance exist among all, regardless of their social class, religion or gender."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Both "Forbes" and "Time" magazines have named Lubna Olayan one of the world's most influential women. The Grand Mufti, Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Sheikh, on the other hand, condemned the event, saying that "Allowing women to mix with men is the root of every evil and catastrophe ... It is highly punishable. Mixing of men and women is a reason for greater decadence and adultery."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Wajeha al-Huwaider is often described as the most radical and prominent feminist activist in Saudi Arabia. In a 2008 interview, she described plans for an NGO called The Association for the Protection and Defense of Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia. She described the goals of the organization:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "Among the issues that have been raised, and that are of the utmost importance, are: representation for women in Sharia courts; setting a [minimum] age for girls' marriages; allowing women to take care of their own affairs in government agencies and allowing them to enter government buildings; protecting women from domestic violence, such as physical or verbal violence, or keeping her from studies, work, or marriage, or forcing her to divorce ... We need laws to protect women from these aggressions and violations of their rights as human beings. And there is also [the need to] prevent girls' circumcision ... We truly have a great need for a Ministry of Women's Affairs to deal with women's rights, issues of motherhood and infancy, and women's health in rural areas ... This is our ultimate goal ..."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2008, the government warned The Association for the Protection and Defense of Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia not to hold any protests.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudis frequently debate how to bring about change. Those who oppose activists like Wajeha al-Huwaider fear that an all-or-nothing approach to women's rights will spur a backlash against any change. Journalist Sabria Jawhar dismisses Huwaider as a show-off: "The problem with some Saudi activists is that they want to make wholesale changes that are contrary to Islam, which requires a for traveling women. If one wonders why great numbers of Saudi women don't join al-Huwaider, it's because they are asked to defy Islam. Al-Huwaider's all-or-nothing position undercuts her credibility."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Retaliation against women's rights activism has some precedent. Immediately following Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Saudi women launched a campaign for their rights. Forty-seven women drove illegally through Riyadh in protest against the ban on driving. Activists presented a petition to King Fahd requesting "basic legal and social rights." Subsequently, a feminist leader was arrested and tortured. Fundamentalists demanded strict punishment of the women who had driven in protest and denounced activists as "whores." The enforced the dress code more aggressively.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Those who argue in favour of slow change include history professor Hatoon al-Fassi. Al-Fassi says recent campaigns for women's rights have opened up public discourse on topics such as child marriage and rape. "It's an exaggeration to call it a women's movement. But we are proud to say that something is going on in Saudi Arabia. We are not really free, but it is possible for women to express themselves as never before." She says that Westerners do not understand Saudi culture and how potentially traumatic change can be: "People had lived their whole lives doing one thing and believing one thing, and suddenly the King and the major clerics were saying that mixing was O.K. You can't begin to imagine the impact that the ban on mixing has on our lives and what lifting this ban would mean."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Arguments in favour of faster change and more activism include those of Somayya Jabarti, editor of "Arab News". Jabarti says there are too many women with decision-making power who are like "queen bees," doing nothing to question the status quo. "People say things are changing for women because they are comparing it to before, when things were below zero. People say 'change,' but it is all relative and it is very, very limited...Change is not coming, we are taking it ... I don't think the way is paved. I think we are building it through the route taken ... Most of the time, we are walking in place."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: From 2009 to 2010, many Saudi women opposed mixed workplaces and women driving, and a majority of women did not think women should hold political office. Many embraced the veil and the male-guardianship system. Many Saudis viewed their country as "the closest thing to an ideal and pure Islamic nation" and, therefore, most in need of resistance to Western values. Conservative cleric Mohsen al-Awaji says the country must resist secularization: "Saudi society is a special, tribal society, and neither King Abdullah or anyone else can impose his own interpretation of Islam. They can do nothing without Islam. There is no Saudi Arabia without Islam."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Princess Loulwa Al-Faisal describes herself as a conservative, advocating for change that is gradual and consistent with Islam. As a member of the royal family, she argues that Islam sees women's rights as equal but different, which "together, add up to a secure society that works." Princess Al-Faisal argues "The ultra-conservatives and the ultra-liberals both want the same thing, the destruction of the Islamic way. We are preserving it ... There are problems mostly with the way the law is interpreted, mostly in the courts, but those are changing." According to Princess Al-Faisal, Saudi women are better off than Western women in some ways: "their property is inviolable and that men have a duty to look after them." She also says the "lack of modesty" in the West is "bad for the children." Nonetheless, she supports women's suffrage in municipal elections. When Thomas Friedman asked her what she would do if she were "queen for a day," she replied, "First thing, I'd let women drive."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: For several decades, non-Saudi women suffered job discrimination because there was a popular belief that organizations and corporations were not allowed to hire non-Saudi women. Yasminah Elsaadany, a non-Saudi woman who held several managerial positions in multinational organisations in the pharmaceutical industry from 2011 to 2014, contacted the Saudi Labor Minister, Adel Fakeih, and his consultants from 2010 to 2013. She argued that this was discrimination and that it would be in the interest of Saudi industry to employ non-Saudi women to fill personnel gaps. In late 2013, the Ministry of Labor announced that it would allow non-Saudi women to work in health services, education, dressmaking, childcare, the wedding business and as cleaners.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2013, the Saudi government officially sanctioned sports for girls in private schools for the first time. In 2016, four Saudi women were allowed to participate in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and Princess Reema was appointed to lead the new department for women of the sports authority.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In the 2015 Global Gender Gap Report, Saudi Arabia progressed by four places due to an increase in the percentage of women in parliament (from 0% to 20%), based on the introduction of a new quota for women in parliament, and it had the biggest overall score improvement relative to any country in the Middle East in 2006.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: That same year, Saudi women were allowed to ride bicycles for the first time, although only around parks and other "recreational areas." Female cyclists must also be dressed in full Islamic body coverings and be accompanied by a male relative. Saudi Arabia also registered its first female trainee lawyer, Arwa al-Hujaili, who is also the first Saudi woman to attain an aircraft dispatcher license.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: A royal decree passed in May 2017 gave women access to government services such as education and healthcare without the need for a male guardian's consent. The order also stated that such access should only be allowed if it does not contradict Sharia law.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2017, a decision was made that allowed women to process their government transactions without the need to obtain prior consent from their partners.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: On September 26, 2017, women were legally allowed to drive, but the law wasn't implemented until June 23, 2018.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In May 2018, activist Loujain Al-Hathloul was arrested by the Saudi authorities for driving and advocating for women's rights. She has been kept in solitary confinement, denied access to medical care, legal advice or visits from family members. Reportedly, she has also been subjected to various forms of torture, including whipping, beating, electrocution and sexual harassment.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In January 2019, the Saudi justice ministry approved a new law that would prevent men from secretly divorcing their wives without informing them. With the new regulation, the woman would receive a text message from the court when the divorce was processed. "Women...will be notified of any changes to their marital status via text message. Women in the Kingdom will be able to view documents related to the termination of their marriage contracts through the ministry’s website," the justice ministry said. Also in 2019, the number of female attorneys increased by 120 percent.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: A new law that was amended in 2019 allowed women aged 21 and above to apply for a passport and to travel without a guardian approval. The amendment also permitted women to "register a marriage, divorce, or child’s birth and to be issued official family documents. It also stipulates that a father or mother can be legal guardians of children." In November 2020, Saudi Arabia announced new penalties including fines and imprisonment for abusing women, either physically or psychologically.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: As of 2020, reforms appear to be working across a number of metrics. A crucial one is the employment rate of women, which increased from 66 per cent in 2016 to 75 per cent in that year. These measures are significant, but their implementation is even more so in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the consequences of which the world will live with for years to come.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Last January in 2020, it amended anti-harassment laws to include provisions for publishing the names of the offenders. This week, a court did just that, ruling to name and shame a man convicted of verbally abusing a woman. The man, Yasser Mussalam Al Arwe, will serve eight months in prison. His conviction and sentencing will illustrate to women that their concerns are being heard, while also showing men that the government is serious about clamping down on such behaviour


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Gender segregation has produced great enthusiasm for innovative communications technology, especially when it is anonymous. Saudis were early adopters of Bluetooth technology, as men and women have used it to communicate secretly.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudi women use online social networking as a way to share ideas they cannot share publicly. As one woman states:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "In Saudi Arabia, we live more of a virtual life than a real life. I know people who are involved in online romances with people they have never met in real life...And many of us use Facebook for other things, like talking about human rights and women's rights. We can protest on Facebook about the jailing of a blogger which is something we couldn't do on the streets."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: A Saudi internet radio station that promotes women's rights from abroad announced via Twitter that it would broadcast on a weekly basis.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Western critics often compare the treatment of Saudi women to a system of apartheid, analogous with South Africa's treatment of non-whites during South Africa's apartheid era. As evidence, they cite restrictions on travel, fields of study, choice of profession, access to the courts, and political speech. Mona Eltahawy, a columnist for "The New York Times" wrote, "Saudi women are denied many of the same rights that 'Blacks' and 'Coloreds' were denied in apartheid South Africa and yet the Kingdom still belongs to the very same international community that kicked Pretoria out of its club."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Some commentators have argued that Saudi gender policies constitute a crime against humanity and warrant intervention from the international community. They criticize the U.S. government for decrying the Taliban's sexist policies while allied to Saudi Arabia. Mary Kaldor views gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia as similar to that enforced by the Taliban in Afghanistan. In contrast, political commentator Daniel Pipes sees Saudi gender apartheid as tempered by other practices, such as allowing women to attend school and work.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Critics also blame Western corporations that cooperate with the enforcement of gender segregation. American chains such as Starbucks and Pizza Hut maintain separate eating areas; the men's areas are typically high-quality, whereas the women's are rundown and sometimes even lack seats. In a 2001 column, Washington Post editor Colbert I. King commented:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "As with Saudi Arabia, white-ruled South Africa viewed external criticism as a violation of its sovereignty and interference with its internal affairs. And U.S. corporations in South Africa, as with their Saudi Arabian counterparts, pleaded that they had no choice but to defer to the local 'culture.'"


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: King went on to question why there is nothing like the Sullivan Principles for gender-based discrimination. Journalist Anne Applebaum argues that gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia gets a free pass from American feminists. She questions why American civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson were active in protesting South Africa's racial apartheid, but American feminists rarely venture beyond reproductive rights when discussing international politics: "Until this changes, it will be hard to mount a campaign, in the manner of the anti-apartheid movement, to enforce sanctions or codes of conduct for people doing business there."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Cultural relativism is the root of activist inaction according to feminists such as Azar Majedi, Pamela Bone, and Maryam Namazie. They argue that political Islam is misogynistic, and the desire of Western liberals to tolerate Islam blinds them to women's rights violations. Majedi and Namazie, both born in Iran, consider cultural relativism racist: "To put it bluntly, according to this concept, because of my birthplace, I should enjoy fewer rights relative to a woman born in Sweden, England, or France." Pamela Bone argues feminist apathy is supported by "the dreary cultural relativism that pervades the thinking of so many of those once described as on the Left. We are no better than they are. We should not impose our values on them. We can criticise only our own. The problem with this mindset is that, with all its faults, Western culture is clearly, objectively, better." Bone argues that cultural relativism comes from a fear that criticizing Islam will be considered racist.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Ann Elizabeth Mayer, an American specialist in Islamic law, sees gender apartheid as enshrined in the Saudi Basic Law:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "Article 9. The family is the kernel of Saudi society, and its members shall be brought up on the basis of the Islamic faith, and loyalty and obedience to Allah, His Messenger, and to guardians; respect for and implementation of the law, and love of and pride in the homeland and its glorious history as the Islamic faith stipulates.Article 10. The state will aspire to strengthen family ties, maintain its Arab and Islamic values and care for all its members, and to provide the right conditions for the growth of their resources and capabilities."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Mayer argues that Articles 9 and 10 deny women "any opportunity to participate in public law or government."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In January 2019, British parliamentarians and lawmakers sought access to eight detained female activists in Saudi Arabia. The request followed a report by the Human Rights Watch, which claimed that the women were subject to abuse, electric shocks, beatings, flogging, and rape threats. Crispin Blunt, UK Conservative Member of Parliament, said:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "There are credible concerns that the conditions in which the Saudi women activists are being detained may have fallen significantly short of both international and Saudi Arabia's own standards. We make this request to the Saudi authorities so that we can assess for ourselves the conditions in which the Saudi women activists have been and are being detained today. No person should be subjected to the type of treatment that has allegedly been inflicted upon these women activists while in detention. The implications of activists being detained and tortured for exercising their freedom of speech and conducting peaceful campaigns is concerning for all individuals seeking to exercise their human rights in Saudi Arabia."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: On October 15, 2020, UK-based rights advocacy group Amnesty International urged the participants of Women 20 Summit to demand Riyadh to release the imprisoned women's rights activists. According to Amnesty International, participants of the W20 had the opportunity and shared the responsibility to not only stand for the detained Saudi women rights defenders but also promote a meaningful human rights campaign.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: On November 29, 2020, seven European human rights ambassadors criticized Saudi Arabia over the continued detention of at least five women's rights activists, including Loujain al-Hathloul. According to a statement by Loujain al-Hathloul's family, the court referred her case to the Specialized Criminal Court for terrorism and national security cases. According to Amnesty International, Samar Badawi was also referred to the same special court, while Nassima al-Sada, Nouf Abdulaziz and Maya’a al-Zahrani were to remain in detention. CNN reached out to the Saudi government for their response; the Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Adel Jubeir, told them that Loujain's case "was up to the courts" and that she was tried for matters concerning the national security of Saudi Arabia.


title: Tom Savini

text: Thomas Vincent Savini (born November 3, 1946) is an American prosthetic makeup artist, actor, stunt performer and film director. He is known for his makeup and special effects work on many films directed by George A. Romero, including "Martin", "Dawn of the Dead", "Day of the Dead", "Creepshow" and "Monkey Shines"; he also created the special effects and makeup for many cult classics like "Friday the 13th" (parts I and IV), "Maniac", "The Burning", "The Prowler" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2".


title: Tom Savini

text: Savini directed "Night of the Living Dead", the 1990 remake of Romero's 1968 "Night of the Living Dead"; his other directing work includes three episodes of the TV show "Tales from the Darkside" and one segment in "The Theatre Bizarre". As an actor and stuntman, he has appeared in films such as "Martin", "Dawn of the Dead", "Knightriders", "From Dusk till Dawn", "Planet Terror", "Machete", "Django Unchained" and "Machete Kills".


title: Tom Savini

text: Savini was born on November 3, 1946, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is of Italian descent. He was raised Catholic and graduated from Central Catholic High School. As a boy, his inspiration was actor Lon Chaney Sr., and Savini attributes his earliest desires to create makeup effects to Chaney and the film "Man of a Thousand Faces".


title: Tom Savini

text: Experimenting with whatever medium he could find, the young Savini practiced creating makeup effects on himself, later convincing his friends to let him practice his craft on them. He also discovered another passion, acting. Combining his makeup applications and homemade costumes, he especially enjoyed scaring his friends. Savini attended Point Park University for three years, before enlisting in the United States Army. After his tour in Vietnam, he attended Carnegie-Mellon University, as the first undergraduate to be awarded a full fellowship in the acting and directing program. He appeared in stage productions throughout college and continued on stage long after his tour of duty in Vietnam.


title: Tom Savini

text: Savini served as a combat photographer during the Vietnam War. In a 2002 interview, he told the "Pittsburgh Post" "When I was in Vietnam I was a combat photographer. My job was to shoot images of damage to machines and to people. Through my lens, I saw some hideous [stuff]. To cope with it, I guess I tried to think of it as special effects. Now, as an artist, I just think of creating the effect within the limitations we have to deal with." He continued to practice with makeup in Vietnam, often frightening indigenous peasants by appearing to suddenly transform into a "monster".


title: Tom Savini

text: Using the lens of his camera, Savini separated himself from the real life horrors of war; however, all the images still haunted his mind. Savini said his wartime experiences influenced his eventual style of gory effects: "I hated that when I watched a war movie and someone dies. Some people die with one eye open and one eye half-closed, sometimes people die with smiles on their faces because the jaw is always slack. I incorporated the feeling of the stuff I saw in Vietnam into my work."


title: Tom Savini

text: In 1970, while on guard duty, a flare was triggered in the jungle area Savini was watching. Against military protocol, Savini fired into the bush without informing his superiors. Other soldiers likewise began firing until a duck wandered from the bush completely unharmed. Due to his failure to follow orders, Savini was taken off guard duty from his bunker on the following evening. That same evening, the bunker came under attack and several soldiers were wounded or killed. As a result of this incident, Savini earned the nickname "Duck Slayer" and to this day will not eat duck.


title: Tom Savini

text: Among the many talents Savini achieved as a young man was the art of fencing, he is a tournament fencer as well as an accomplished gymnast. Much of his stunt work and some of his characters reflect these graceful abilities; however, he is also accomplished with a bull whip and can easily execute a motorcycle stunt. Many of his characters have been bikers or madmen who are hardened and eerily evil.


title: Tom Savini

text: Savini is primarily known for his groundbreaking work in the field of special make-up effects, also known as prosthetic makeup. His signature style and techniques bring vivid realism to genre films. Early in Savini's career, Dick Smith became an inspiration and a guide, later becoming an associate at Savini's Special Make-up Effects Program. Among other projects, Smith is known for his groundbreaking work in "The Exorcist".


title: Tom Savini

text: Savini got his breakthrough working with Pittsburgh filmmaker George A. Romero, providing a convincing wrist-slashing effect in the opening scenes of "Martin" (1978). The following year, working with a larger budget on "Dawn of the Dead", Savini created his signature palette of severed limbs and bite-marks. In the 1980 slasher film "Friday the 13th", Savini expanded his repertoire of blood and gore. He continued to perfect those techniques in another film that year, "Maniac".


title: Tom Savini

text: Along with the 1981 films "The Burning" and "The Prowler", Savini earned the nickname "The Sultan of Splatter". In 1982, he created more traditional horror effects in the film "Creepshow" directed by George A. Romero and written by Stephen King. In 1984, he agreed to work on "", where he killed his creation Jason Voorhees. Returning to the zombie genre in 1985, Savini was nominated and won the 1985 Saturn Award for Best Makeup Effects for his work on the Romero's "Day of the Dead". In 1986, Savini worked with director Tobe Hooper on the film "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2".


title: Tom Savini

text: Savini has also worked on films by Italian director Dario Argento, first in 1990 on the film "Two Evil Eyes" and again on the 1993 film "Trauma". In the 1991 film "Heartstopper", he created special effects for director John A. Russo. Although focusing more on his acting career in recent years, Savini has continued to be active with special makeup effects and in 2011 supervised the effects for the Australian film "Redd Inc".


title: Tom Savini

text: As an actor, Savini has appeared in many of the same films he was creating effects for. His first appearance was a relatively straight, innocuous character in "Martin" in 1978; however, he played a menacing biker called Blades in his next film "Dawn of the Dead" (1978), a role he reprised in zombie form with a cameo appearance in the 2005 continuation of the series, "Land of the Dead". In the 1980 film "Maniac", his brief role in the film found him facing the maniac's shotgun and having his head blown off in a spectacular display. Savini had a more prominent role as biker and antagonist Morgan, the Black Knight, in George A. Romero's "Knightriders" (1981). Continuing with the biker theme, Savini played the universally recognized, whip-wielding, vampire-fighting biker "Sex Machine" in the 1996 Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez film "From Dusk till Dawn". (This character was a riff on Blades from "Dawn of the Dead" replete with the same costume.)


title: Tom Savini

text: In 2007, Savini had a role in "Planet Terror", one of two stories in the "Grindhouse" film, directed by Robert Rodriguez. Savini plays Deputy Tolo, who fights to save his town from an infestation of zombie-like creatures. In another Rodriguez film, "Machete", based on a fake movie trailer played during the film "Grindhouse", Savini played Osiris Amanpour, hired to track and kill the protagonist Machete. Savini reprised his role in the sequel, "Machete Kills".


title: Tom Savini

text: Throughout the years, Savini has appeared in movie roles from cameos as the vampire David Van Etten in ";"as the sheriff in the 2004 "Dawn of the Dead" remake; or tongue in cheek characters like Jesus Christ in "Zombiegeddon" (2003).


title: Tom Savini

text: In 2006, Savini essayed the role of Prester John, the mythical villain in the dreamlike "Sea of Dust". That year also saw the release of Johannes Roberts' "Forest of the Damned", in which Savini played a mad hermit surrounded by angels cast from heaven. In 2008, he made a brief appearance in "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" as a thieving slumlord. He also appeared in "The Dead Matter", along with Andrew Divoff and Jim O'Rear. Savini voiced himself on "The Simpsons" episode "Worst Episode Ever".


title: Tom Savini

text: While making an appearance at Android's Dungeon, Savini performs the "Gutbuster" gag, covering the crowd in "blood and guts" and consequently humiliating the Comic Book Guy. In 2012, Savini appeared as a shop teacher, Mr. Callahan, in the Pittsburgh-set teen drama "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", starring Logan Lerman. Savini also appeared as one of the Trackers in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained". Future projects include Savini starring in the Nazi zombie film "The 4th Reich" directed by Shaun Robert Smith, playing the role of SS-Standartenführer Oskar Dirlewanger.


title: Tom Savini

text: As a film director, Savini helmed episodes of the syndicated television series "Tales from the Darkside", the aforementioned 1990 color remake of "Night of the Living Dead"; and "House Call", the pilot of the proposed series "The Chill Factor", which starred Pittsburgh actor Bingo O'Malley. In 2011, he directed "Wet Dreams", one of six segments to the horror film "The Theatre Bizarre". In 2009, Savini announced his plan to direct a new film, "Death Island", with special make-up effects by his former protege Greg Nicotero. On September 1, 2013, Savini began a crowd funding project on Indiegogo for "Death Island". His plans were to begin filming by the end of 2013.


title: Tom Savini

text: In the 2008 novel "Bad Moon Rising" by Jonathan Maberry, Savini appears as one of the real-world horror celebrities who are in the fictional town of Pine Deep when monsters attack; other celebrities include James Gunn, Jim O'Rear, Brinke Stevens, Ken Foree, Stephen Susco, Debbie Rochon, Joe Bob Briggs and blues man Mem Shannon.


title: Tom Savini

text: Savini also briefly took part in Jerry Lawler's 2010 revival of the "Memphis Wrestling" pro wrestling television show. His on-screen character sent horror-movie monsters (played by wrestlers from the Memphis area) onto the show to get revenge for Savini who blamed Lawler for the death of Savini's friend Andy Kaufman; the monsters' handler was manager "Hollywood" Jimmy Blaylock.


title: Tom Savini

text: In 2012, American filmmaker Jason Baker debuted a biography of Savini entitled "Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini".


title: Tom Savini

text: He stated during a Q&A with fans that the hardest movie he has ever worked on was "Creepshow" because it was "5 movies in 1".


title: Tom Savini

text: In 2018, Savini announced via his Instagram that he would be directing a horror web series, in collaboration with others, including Tina Romero, George A. Romero's daughter. Special effects for the web series will be completed by Savini's students at Douglas Education Center. The web series is currently in production.


title: Tom Savini

text: In May 2019, Slipknot lead singer and frontman Corey Taylor said in an interview that Tom Savini worked to produce and create his new masks for the upcoming "We Are Not Your Kind" album and subsequent tour cycles. Around the same time, Savini was approached by wrestler Bray Wyatt to design the mask for his brand new "Fiend" character.


title: Tom Savini

text: Savini runs the Tom Savini's Special Make-Up Effects Program at the Douglas Education Center in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Savini is happy to say that he refers offers he receives for movie make-up effects projects to his students and graduates of his school as well.


title: Tom Savini

text: Savini is the author of several books on special effects including "Grande Illusions" I and II (1983, 1994) which detail the production and mechanical workings of many of his famous film effects. In "Horror F/X", a 1989 direct-to-video interview conducted by frequent collaborator John A. Russo, Savini explains many of his effects techniques, illustrated by film clips and behind-the-scenes video footage. He is also associated with other books in the horror genre including "Book of the Dead" and "Horror 101" for which he wrote the foreword. Savini has also appeared in public demonstrating his effects, including appearances in the 1980s on "Late Night With David Letterman" in which he demonstrated such effects as "fire gel" and a gunshot to the head on Letterman himself.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Bryant Charles Gumbel (born September 29, 1948) is an American television journalist and sportscaster, best known for his 15 years as co-host of NBC's "Today". He is the younger brother of sportscaster Greg Gumbel. Since 1995, he has hosted HBO's acclaimed investigative series "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel", which has been rated as "flat out TV's best sports program" by the "Los Angeles Times". It won a Peabody Award in 2012.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel was hired by NBC Sports in the fall of 1975 as co-host of its National Football League pre-game show "GrandStand" with Jack Buck. From 1975 until January 1982 (when he left to do "The Today Show"), he hosted numerous sporting events for NBC including Major League Baseball, college basketball and the National Football League. He returned to sportscasting for NBC when he hosted the prime time coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics from Seoul and the PGA Tour in 1990.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: NBC News made Gumbel the principal anchor of "Today" beginning September 27, 1982, and broadcast from Vietnam, Vatican City, Europe, South America, and much of the United States between 1984 and 1989. Gumbel's work on "Today" earned him several Emmys and a large fanbase. He is the third longest serving co-host of "Today", after former hosts Matt Lauer and Katie Couric. He stepped down from the show on January 3, 1997, after 15 years.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel moved to CBS, where he hosted various shows before becoming co-host of the network's morning show "The Early Show" on November 1, 1999. Gumbel was hosting "The Early Show" on the morning of September 11, 2001. He was the first to announce the September 11 attacks to CBS viewers. Gumbel left CBS and "The Early Show" on May 17, 2002.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel was born in New Orleans. He is the son of Rhea Alice (née LeCesne), a city clerk, and Richard Dunbar Gumbel, a judge. His surname originates with his great-great-grandfather, who was a German-Jewish emigrant from the village of Albisheim. Raised Catholic, he attended and graduated from De La Salle Institute in Chicago, while growing up on the South Side of the city; his family had moved north when he was a child. He graduated from Bates College in 1970 with a degree in Russian history.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: In 1971, he became editor of "Black Sports", leaving the following year. He began his television career in October 1972, when he was made a sportscaster for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Already a local evening news sports anchor for KNBC, in Los Angeles, Gumbel was hired by NBC Sports in the fall of 1975 as co-host of its National Football League pre-game show "GrandStand" with Jack Buck. From 1975 until January 1982 (when he left to do "The Today Show"), he hosted numerous sporting events for NBC including Major League Baseball, college basketball and the National Football League. He returned to sportscasting for NBC when he hosted the prime time coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics from Seoul and the PGA Tour in 1990.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: One of Gumbel's more memorable moments during his time at NBC Sports occurred when he was on-site for the "Epic in Miami" NFL playoff game between the San Diego Chargers and Miami Dolphins. At the end of the game, he told the viewers, "If you didn't like this football game then you don't like football!" This would be one of his final assignments for NBC Sports, as he began co-hosting "Today" two days later.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel began his affiliation with "Today" as the program's chief sports reporter contributing twice-weekly features to the program, including a regular series entitled "Sportsman of the Week," featuring up-and-coming athletes. In June 1981, NBC announced that Tom Brokaw would depart "Today" to anchor the "NBC Nightly News" with Roger Mudd beginning in the spring of 1982. The search for Brokaw's replacement was on, and the initial candidates were all NBC News correspondents, including John Palmer, Chris Wallace, Bob Kur, Bob Jamieson, and Jessica Savitch. The candidates auditioned for Brokaw's job throughout the summer of 1981 when he was on vacation. Gumbel became a candidate for the job just by chance when he served as a last-minute substitute for "Today" co-anchor Jane Pauley in August 1981. He so impressed executive producer Steve Friedman and other NBC executives that he quickly became a top contender for the "Today" anchor position.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: While Friedman and other NBC executives favored Gumbel as Brokaw's replacement, another contingent within the NBC News division felt strongly that he should be replaced by a fellow news correspondent, not a sports reporter. Wallace was the favored candidate of then-NBC News president Bill Small. NBC News decided to split the difference, selecting Gumbel as the program's anchor and Wallace as the Washington-based anchor. Pauley would remain co-anchor in New York. Brokaw signed off of "Today" on December 18, 1981, and Gumbel replaced him on January 4, 1982.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: The Gumbel–Pauley–Wallace arrangement, known internally as the "Mod Squad", lasted only nine months. It was an arrangement that proved intriguing on paper but unwieldy on television. Gumbel served as the show's traffic cop, opening and closing the program and conducting New York-based interviews, but Pauley and Wallace handled newsreading duties, and Wallace conducted all Washington-based hard news interviews. With ABC's "Good Morning America" in first place and expanding its lead, NBC News made Gumbel the principal anchor of "Today" beginning September 27, 1982, with Pauley as his co-anchor. Wallace became the chief White House correspondent covering President Ronald Reagan, and John Palmer, previously a White House correspondent, became "Today"'s New York-based news anchor.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel and Pauley had a challenging first two years together as "Today" anchors as they sought to find a rhythm as a team. "Good Morning America" solidified its lead over "Today" in the ratings during the summer of 1983, and Pauley's departure for maternity leave sent "Today" into a ratings tailspin. But when she returned in February 1984, they began to work well together as a team. NBC took "Today" on the road in the fall of '84, sending Gumbel to the Soviet Union for an unprecedented series of live broadcasts from Moscow. He won plaudits for his performance, erasing any doubts about his hard-news capabilities. That trip began a whirlwind period of travel for "Today". Remote broadcasts from Vietnam, Vatican City, Europe, South America, and much of the United States followed between 1984 and 1989. "Today" began to regain its old ratings dominance against "Good Morning America" throughout 1985, and by early 1986, the NBC program was once again atop the ratings.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: During this time, Gumbel had developed animosity toward David Letterman when the "Late Night" host disrupted taping of a "Today" primetime special in Rockefeller Center with a bullhorn. "If I had gotten to him, I would have hit him," Gumbel said of Letterman. The pair would reconcile a few years later.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: In 1989, Gumbel, who was already known for his strong management style as "Today" anchor, wrote a memo to the executive producer Marty Ryan, on Ryan's request, critiquing the program and identifying its shortcomings. Many of his criticisms were directed at fellow "Today" staffers. It was leaked to the press. In the memo, Gumbel commented that Willard Scott "holds the show hostage to his assortment of whims, wishes, birthdays and bad taste ... this guy is killing us and no one's even trying to rein him in". He commented that Gene Shalit's movie reviews "are often late and his interviews aren't very good."


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: There was enough negative backlash in regard to Gumbel's comments toward Scott that he was shown making up with Scott on "Today".


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Following Pauley's departure from "Today" in December 1989, Gumbel was joined by Deborah Norville in a short-lived partnership that lasted just over a year. "Today" dropped to second place in the ratings during this period as a result of intensely negative publicity surrounding Norville's replacement of Pauley, and Gumbel's feud with Scott. Norville was replaced by Katie Couric in April 1991, and the Gumbel-Couric team helped refocus "Today" as the morning news program on public affairs during the 1992 presidential campaign. The program returned to first place in the ratings in December 1995.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel's work on "Today" earned him several Emmys and a large group of fans. He is the third longest serving co-host of "Today", after Matt Lauer and Couric. He stepped down from the show on January 3, 1997, after 15 years.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Since his departure, Gumbel has made occasional appearances on "Today". He appeared for the show's 60th anniversary and hosted with Lauer and Pauley on December 30, 2013.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: After 15 years on "Today", Gumbel moved to CBS to host a new prime time news-magazine called "Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel" during the 1997–1998 television season. The episode "The Reckoning" won a Peabody Award in 1998. It lasted just one season before being cancelled. It aired on Wednesday nights at 9pm ET before moving to Tuesdays at 9pm ET.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: After leaving the "Today" and "Dateline NBC" in 1997, Gumbel moved to CBS, where he hosted various shows before becoming co-host of the network's morning show "The Early Show" on November 1, 1999. Gumbel left "The Early Show" (and CBS that same year) on May 17, 2002. Gumbel was hosting "The Early Show" on the morning of September 11, 2001. He was the first to announce the September 11 attacks to CBS viewers.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: In the spring and summer of 2010, he served as a special guest moderator of ABC's "The View" for multiple days.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: A CBS camera caught a disgusted Gumbel blurting out "What a f-ing idiot" just after he had finished a hostile interview with Robert Knight of the Family Research Council (FRC). The incident occurred at about 7:15 a.m. ET on Thursday, June 29, 2000, following Knight's appearance to defend the Boy Scout policy of excluding gays from being leaders. The Media Research Center reported that he uttered those words; Gumbel openly admitted to saying so when guest-hosting a June 2007 episode of "Live with Regis and Kelly".


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel has concentrated most of his energy recently on his duties as host of HBO's acclaimed investigative series "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" (a show that he has hosted since 1995). HBO's web page claims that "Real Sports" has been described as "flat out—TV's best sports program" by the "Los Angeles Times". It won a Peabody Award in 2012.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: In February 2006, Gumbel made remarks that some viewed as "reverse racism" regarding the Winter Olympics and the lack of African-American participation, and others considered important sports journalism commentary.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: On the August 15, 2006, episode of "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel", Gumbel made the following remarks about former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Players' Union president Gene Upshaw and directed these comments to new commissioner Roger Goodell:


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: On the October 18, 2011, Gumbel evoked slavery in his criticism of NBA Commissioner David Stern over the league's lockout.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: In a Rolling Stone article dated January 20, 2015, Gumbel said: "There are a few things I hate more than the (National Rifle Association). I mean truly. I think they're pigs. I think they don't care about human life. I think they are a curse upon the American landscape. So we got that on the record."


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel made a cameo appearance alongside Nicolas Cage and Michael Caine in "The Weather Man", a film directed by Gore Verbinski. In it, he cohosts a morning show entitled "Hello America," for which Cage's character, a depressed weatherman, auditions.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel made a cameo appearance on the NBC sitcom "Seinfeld" during which he interviewed Jerry Seinfeld on "Today" while Jerry was wearing the puffy pirate shirt in the episode "The Puffy Shirt".


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel made a cameo appearance on the sitcom "The Nanny" during which he gives Fran Fine an audition for a job in television in the episode "Fair Weather Fran".


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: In April 2006, NFL Network announced that Gumbel, along with Cris Collinsworth and Dick Vermeil, would comment on its new package of NFL games. Unlike his brother Greg, he had never called play-by-play for live sporting events in his career. Before his first game commentary for the network, his status was brought into question after he stirred up controversy in his closing remarks on his HBO program on August 15, 2006, in which he criticized NFL Players Association head Gene Upshaw and outgoing NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. He would later reconcile with the NFL and retained his play-by-play job with the NFL Network. On December 29, 2007, he had a reunion of sorts as he called the Patriots-Giants game on the NFL Network, CBS, and NBC. This is the first three-network simulcast NFL game and, coincidentally, he has worked for all three networks during his career. He also had a strong affiliation with NFL films.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel's performance was the subject of criticism over his entire run because of his voice and a perceived lack of knowledge about the game. Gumbel stepped down as play-by-play announcer in April 2008, prior to the 2008 NFL season. He would be replaced on the NFL Network telecasts by Bob Papa.


title: Bryant Gumbel

text: Gumbel raised two children with his wife, June, in semi-rural Waccabuc, north of New York City. In 2001, he divorced her to marry Hilary Quinlan. Around 2002, he shed 55 pounds of weight in seven months. In October 2009, he had surgery to remove a malignant tumor near one of his lungs.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: Madman Across the Water is the fourth studio album by English musician Elton John, released in 1971 through DJM and Uni Records. The album was his third album to be released in 1971, at which point John had been rising to prominence as a popular music artist. The album contains nine tracks, each composed and performed by John and with lyrics written by songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. Yes band keyboardist Rick Wakeman plays Hammond organ on two songs.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: There were two singles released from "Madman Across the Water", "Levon" and "Tiny Dancer". The album was certified gold in February 1972, followed by platinum in March 1993, and 2× platinum in August 1998 by the RIAA. The album was included in Robert Dimery's "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". On 10 June 2022, the album was reissued as a deluxe edition for its 50th anniversary, featuring 18 unreleased tracks including demos, outtakes and alternate takes, as well as a 40-page book detailing the album's creation with notes from John and Taupin.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: The nine tracks were each composed and performed by John and with lyrics written by songwriting partner Bernie Taupin as with his previous material. Unlike John's other studio albums at the time, "Madman" featured John's touring band (which consisted of bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson) on only a single song, due to producer Gus Dudgeon's lack of faith in the group for studio recordings. Instead, most of the tracks were backed by studio players and string arrangements put together by Paul Buckmaster. Davey Johnstone, who had previously worked with Dudgeon as a part of Magna Carta, was also put on as the main guitarist.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: Murray and Olsson would be fully featured in John's succeeding album, "Honky Château". Percussionist and later band member Ray Cooper made his first appearance with this album. This was John's last album to be recorded at London's Trident Studios, although subsequent albums would be remixed or overdubbed at Trident. Caleb Quaye and Roger Pope would not play with John again until "Rock of the Westies" in 1975, following Murray and Olsson's departure from the band.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: The album's title song was initially set to be released on John's previous album "Tumbleweed Connection", featuring guitarist Mick Ronson as the primary musician; however, it was set aside and was re-recorded for this album, with Johnstone on the guitar. The earlier version was included on the remastered "Tumbleweed Connection" compact disc.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: Dispelling rumours that the song's lyric referred to then US President Richard Nixon, Bernie Taupin had this to say:


title: Madman Across the Water

text: "Madman Across the Water" was one of John's lowest-charting album efforts. It continued a streak of mediocre performance in the UK for John, peaking at No. 41 on the UK Albums Chart and spending two weeks there. The album fared much better in North America, peaking at No. 8 on the US "Billboard" Top Pop Albums and later on at No. 10 on the year-end list of 1972.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: The album received Gold by the RIAA in February 1972, achieving $1 million in sales at wholesale value just in the United States. In 1993, the album was certified Platinum, representing shipments of more than one million units in the US. In 1998, the album was certified Multi-Platinum, representing shipments of over two million units in the US. In May 2017 the album was certified Silver for sales of 60,000 units by the British Phonographic Industry.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: On release, Alex Dubro of "Rolling Stone" was not especially enthusiastic about "Madman Across the Water", who found it inferior to its two predecessors. Although he commended "Tiny Dancer" and "Levon", he found the lyrics throughout the record confusing, concluding that it is a "difficult, sometimes impossibly dense record" that would not upset John's current fans, but not gain new ones either. On the other hand, Penny Valentine was more positive in "Sounds" magazine, describing John as "a music man of immense feeling and power" that is full of unexplored talent.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: When it was released in 'The Classic Years' collection, it was the first album not to feature any bonus tracks. One known track recorded at the time, "Rock Me When He's Gone", was released on the 1992 compilation "Rare Masters". The song was written for and recorded by one of John's long-time friends, Long John Baldry. It was later remastered for the 50th anniversary deluxe edition.


title: Madman Across the Water

text: Alice in Chains member Jerry Cantrell covered the closing track "Goodbye" for his third solo album "Brighten" and told "Wall of Sound" that John gave his approval for his rendition revealing he said "absolutely you should put it on the record. You got my permission. You did a great version."


title: Madman Across the Water

text: In 1991, Bruce Hornsby and the Range produced a jazzier version of "Madman Across the Water" featuring Hornsby's virtuosic piano playing.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: "3" is a song by American singer Britney Spears from her second greatest hits album, "The Singles Collection" (2009). It was written and produced by Max Martin and Shellback, with additional writing from Tiffany Amber. The song was released on September 29, 2009, by Jive Records, as the only single from "The Singles Collection". "3" is an uptempo electropop song that features a heavy bassline and synthesizers, and lyrics that talk about threesomes, while referencing American folk-singing trio Peter, Paul and Mary during the chorus as sexual slang.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: "3" received positive reception from contemporary music critics, with some reviewers calling it a classic Spears song. The song was a commercial success, topping the charts in the United States and Canada, as well as reaching the top ten in many countries around the world, including Australia, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In the United States, the song debuted at number one in the "Billboard" Hot 100, and became her third number-one single in the country.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: An accompanying music video for "3", directed by Diane Martel, features Spears and her dancers in front of different black and white backgrounds. Martel described it as sexy and playful, while contemporary critics gave it positive reviews, complimenting its simplicity. A director's cut was leaked on December 15, 2009. Spears has performed "3" during her Femme Fatale Tour (2011) and her concert residency (2013–2016).


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: On July 12, 2009, Spears confirmed through her Twitter account that she had begun recording new material, stating she was going into the studio with Swedish songwriter and producer Max Martin, while she was in Stockholm during the European leg of The Circus Starring Britney Spears. They had previously collaborated on earlier hits including "...Baby One More Time", "Oops!...I Did It Again", "Stronger" and "If U Seek Amy". "3" was written and produced by Martin and Shellback, while additional writing was done by Tiffany Amber. Spears recorded her vocals for the song with the producers at Maratone Studios. John Hanes was responsible for Spears' vocal editing on "3", which was later mixed by Serban Ghenea at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia. On September 23, 2009, Jive Records officially announced the release of a greatest hits titled "The Singles Collection" through Spears's official website, in celebration of Spears's ten-year anniversary in the music industry, also announcing the release of "3" as the lead single from the album. The artwork for the single was unveiled through Spears' official website on September 28, 2009. "3" was sent to radio stations on September 29, 2009, while being digitally released on October 2, 2009.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: "3" is an uptempo electropop song which opens with synths and vocal effects. The song has a basic sequence of Fm–E–Bm–Fm as its chord progression. Spears' vocals span from C4 to the high note of C5. During the middle eight, the song slows down with synthetic strings and bass beats, and the section ends with a beat similar to a four-on-the floor, a rhythm pattern popularized in 1970s disco music. Throughout the song, Spears' vocals are autotuned. The song lasts for three minutes and twenty-five seconds. However, eight seconds of silence are added in the end to total the duration to 3:33; a nod to the title of the song.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: The song's lyrics are about threesomes. Unlike "If U Seek Amy", the song has no double entendre and it's more straightforward lyrically. The innuendo in the lyrics such as "Merrier the more, triple fun that way" have been compared to the songs in Prince's 1980 studio album "Dirty Mind". The chorus has been compared to a playground chant and closes with an extended moan. During the second part of the chorus, there is a reference to the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary. Todd Martens of the "Los Angeles Times" called the reference "the cut's biggest oddity".


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: "3" received positive reviews from contemporary music critics. Monica Herrera of "Billboard" commented that the song "builds to a climax of wildly pulsing bass that summons fans to the dancefloor" and added that "[it] will be another notch in this pop provocateur's belt". On its online edition, "Rolling Stone"s writer Daniel Kreps praised the song for its up-tempo melody and racy lyrics, while comparing it to Flo Rida's recent work, saying that "3" "is more of a surefire dance-floor stomper than anything Brit loaded onto "Blackout" or "Circus"". On the printed issue, the magazine gave the song four stars and called it an "instant Britney classic". Clark Collis of "Entertainment Weekly" called it "a fembot voice, near-seizure-inducing dance-floor frenzy". While crediting the production for "elevating the song above typical dance products", the "Los Angeles Times" said that Spears sounded "sweetly generic".


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: In his review of "The Singles Collection", Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic selected "3" as one of the "track picks" and commented, "[it is] much better than any of the three new cuts on """. Bill Lamb of About.com said that although the lyrics are controversial, "the bottom line is this is another irresistibly catchy pop confection that beats out most everything else on pop radio today". He praised the chorus and the middle section and called the track "classic Britney". The song was also compared to Madonna's "Celebration", since they "musically present nothing particularly new, but they do manage to encapsulate many of the elements that make the singer a star". A.J. Mayers of MTV picked it as the eighth best song of 2009.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: On October 8, 2009, "3" entered at number fourteen on the US "Billboard" Bubbling Under Hot 100 and at number thirty-eight on the US "Billboard" Pop Songs, becoming Spears' twenty-fourth career entry in the latter chart, most among all artists. The following week, the song debuted at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming Spears' third number-one single in the United States and breaking many of the chart records. It made Spears the first artist in over three years to debut at the top position and the only non-"American Idol" artist in eleven years to do so. It was the fifteenth song in the chart history to debut at the top position and also the shortest title for a song reaching the top of the "Billboard" Hot 100. The song also charted at number one on the "Billboard" Digital Songs, selling 255,000 downloads in its first week and having the highest one week total of any song, since The Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" back in April 2009. As of October 2015, "3" has sold 2.4 million digital downloads in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan. It is her fourth best-selling digital single in the country. In Canada, the song debuted at number eighty-six on the Canadian Hot 100 on October 17, 2009, and rose up to number one the following week, making it the biggest jump to number one in the history of the chart. It was certified double platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) for sales over 80,000 copies.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: "3" debuted at number fifty on the Australian Singles Chart on October 12, 2009, with only two days of digital sales. It peaked at number six on the week of October 26, 2009. "3" has been certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) with sales of over 70,000 copies. On October 12, 2009, the song debuted at number sixteen in New Zealand, making it her highest chart debut since "Womanizer". On its fifth week on the chart, "3" reached its peak position at number twelve. On the UK Singles Chart, "3" debuted at number seven on November 16, 2009, becoming Spears' twentieth top ten hit on the chart. According to The Official Charts Company, the song has sold 145,000 copies there. "3" achieved similar success throughout Europe reaching the top ten in Belgium (Wallonia), Czech Republic, Finland, Norway, Sweden as well as the top twenty in Austria, Belgium (Flanders) and Denmark.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: The music video was filmed on October 5 and October 6, 2009, in Los Angeles, California. It was directed by Diane Martel and choreographed by Tone & Rich. Fashion stylist GK Reid worked closely with Spears to design the fashion. On October 15, 2009, images of the video were released. A countdown, including images and video previews, was announced on her official website and the release date was revealed to be on October 30, 2009. When asked about the video, Diane Martel said,


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: "I think it's her next sexy video. It's a very simple video for her – I don't think you've seen her this much under a magnifying glass. Everything's really strong and playful. We collaborated on the wardrobe and had meetings about hair and makeup people, we talked a lot on the phone and met Tone and Rich — two of the best choreographers. [..] [Spears]' so sweet and funny and so normal and down to earth. It's really fun as a director to see her in front of the camera. She's so creative with this stuff. The video is very simple, it's very, very minimal. So it's her, her, her. And she's totally engaging every second. She really knows how to work with a camera and move. I was really impressed, and I have worked almost with every female artist in the business".


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: The video begins with Spears wearing a sparkly black dress at a dressing table, putting mascara and "Circus Fantasy" on. Then, it cuts to her holding her hair up and singing the first lines in front of a white background. There are also black and white scenes of her wearing a white leotard behind a foggy glass. She then appears wearing the leotard and glasses, while surrounded by four female dancers wearing black outfits, hanging from a raised barre. The word "sin" is censored and changed for the word "this" during the pre-chorus. In the chorus, she dances in front of a white wall with barcode-like light installations with six male dancers. There also scenes of her dancing provocatively with two male dancers. At the bridge, there are intercut close-ups of her that end with a smirk. The video concludes with Spears dancing with the two male dancers and cuts to a close-up of her looking into the camera.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: "Rolling Stone" writer Daniel Kreps compared the video with the music video of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and complimented the choreography saying Spears had not danced with so much conviction since the "In the Zone" era. Bradley Stern of MuuMuse likened the video's choreography and dancer's wardrobe to Janet Jackson's "Feedback" video. Jocelyn Vena of MTV gave the video a positive review, stating that it's a "sexy, fast-paced clip" and that "there are a few moments in the video where Britney's personality shines" adding that "she smiles at the song's tongue-in-cheek lyrics, particularly when she finishes the song's bridge." Tanner Stransky of "Entertainment Weekly" complimented the video's choice of wardrobe, but said that the video was "sparse", adding "there's not much to the single besides trite, ridiculous advocation for a ménage à trois anyway, so why would the video go any deeper?".


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: On December 15, 2009, a director's cut version of the video for "3" leaked online. Kreps commented that the new version "offers up a slightly more NSFW edit of Martel's dance-heavy vid that seems to find a better cadence with the music, as opposed to the original version, which was essentially filmed and edited in the matter of days to coincide with "The Singles Collection" release".


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: On March 25, 2011, Spears performed a special show at Rain Nightclub in Las Vegas. The setlist of the show consisted on three songs from her seventh studio album, "Femme Fatale", including "Hold It Against Me", "Big Fat Bass" and "Till the World Ends". During the performance of "Big Fat Bass", Spears wore a latex bodysuit and an excerpt of "3" was included in the middle of the performance. Additionally, elements of "Womanizer, "Gimme More" and "I'm a Slave 4 U" were also included. On March 27, 2011, "Big Fat Bass" was also performed at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium that aired on "Good Morning America" on March 29, 2011, and the same day, Spears performed the set at "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", both with the same "3" excerpt.


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: "3" was performed at 2011's Femme Fatale Tour, for the first time in its entirety. After "Up n' Down", Spears put on a white fedora and trench coat and performed the song with her female dancers, dressed in a similar style. Shirley Halperin of "The Hollywood Reporter" named it one of the best performances of the show along with "Piece of Me" and "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know", stating that "ironically enough, [they] were the ones with fewest frills." Rick Florino of Artistdirect said "'3' gave way to a massive sing-a-long" and added that it "[spoke] right to the noir-ish connotations of the Femme Fatale tour. However, she built a one-of-a-kind space where Kim Basinger's elegant "L.A. Confidential" beauty becomes enveloped by edgy modern dance attitude."


title: 3 (Britney Spears song)

text: Spears performed "3" as the third song on her Las Vegas residency, , as part of the original setlist. After a brief talk with the audience, the singer began a performance of the song, jumping into a triangular cage which was wheeled around by her dancers across the stage. A parallel bar then dropped out of the ceiling, and Spears performed choreography similar to the choreography in song's music video. For "Billboard"s Keith Caulfield, the song "served as the sexiest jungle gym in Vegas, as Spears and her dancers undulated their way across and around the bar". Girls' Generation member Sunny performed a cover version of the song during the Girls' Generation Tour that took place in 2011 and 2012. A studio version was also released online alongside the live version featuring on the tour album.


title: Natufian culture

text: The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture. The Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture, at Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world. The world's oldest known evidence of the production of bread-like foodstuff has been found at Shubayqa 1, a 14,400-year-old site in Jordan's northeastern desert, 4,000 years before the emergence of agriculture in Southwest Asia In addition, the oldest known evidence of possible beer-brewing, dating to approximately 13,000 BP, was found at the Raqefet Cave in Mount Carmel near Haifa in Israel, although it may simply be a result of an organic and unintentional fermentation


title: Natufian culture

text: Generally, though, Natufians exploited wild cereals and hunted animals, including gazelles. Archaeogenetic analysis has revealed derivation of later (Neolithic to Bronze Age) Levantines primarily from Natufians, besides substantial admixture from Chalcholithic Anatolians.


title: Natufian culture

text: Dorothy Garrod coined the term Natufian based on her excavations at the Shuqba cave (Wadi an-Natuf) near the town of Shuqba in the western occupied Palestinian Territories.


title: Natufian culture

text: According to ancient DNA analyses conducted in 2016 by Iosif Lazaridis et al. and discussed in two articles "The Genetic Structure of the World's First Farmers" (June 2016) and "Genomic Insights into the Origin of Farming in the Ancient Near East (July 2016) on Natufian skeletal remains from present-day northern Israel, the remains of 5 Natufians carried the following paternal haplgroups:Y-DNA haplogroups (Paternal Lineages)


title: Natufian culture

text: Haplogroup E1b1 is primarily distributed in Africa, and is present at lower frequencies in the Middle East, mainly in Egypt (40%), Jordan (25%), Israel (20%), Palestine (20%), and Lebanon (17.5%).


title: Natufian culture

text: A 2018 analysis by Daniel Shriner, using modern populations as a reference, suggested that the Natufians carried a small amount of Eastern African ancestry (~6.8%) associated with the modern Omotic-speaking groups of southern Ethiopia. The study also suggested that this component may be the source of Y-haplogroup E (particularly Y-haplogroup E-M215, also known as "E1b1b") among Natufians.


title: Natufian culture

text: Alexander Militarev, Vitaly Shevoroshkin and others have linked the Natufian culture to the proto-Afroasiatic language, which they in turn believe has a Levantine origin. Some scholars, for example Christopher Ehret, Roger Blench and others, contend that the Afroasiatic Urheimat is to be found in North Africa or Northeast Africa, probably in the area of Egypt, the Sahara, Horn of Africa or Sudan. Within this group, Ehret, who like Militarev believes Afroasiatic may already have been in existence in the Natufian period, would associate Natufians only with the Near Eastern Proto-Semitic branch of Afroasiatic.


title: Natufian culture

text: The Natufian culture was discovered by British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod during her excavations of Shuqba cave in the Judaean Hills, on the West Bank of the Jordan River. Prior to the 1930s, the majority of archaeological work taking place in British Palestine was biblical archaeology focused on historic periods, and little was known about the region's prehistory. In 1928, Garrod was invited by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ) to excavate Shuqba cave, where prehistoric stone tools had been discovered by Père Mallon four years earlier. She discovered a layer sandwiched between the Upper Palaeolithic and Bronze Age deposits characterised by the presence of microliths. She identified this with the Mesolithic, a transitional period between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic which was well-represented in Europe but had not yet been found in the Near East. A year later, when she discovered similar material at el-Wad Terrace, Garrod suggested the name "the Natufian culture", after Wadi an-Natuf that ran close to Shuqba. Over the next two decades Garrod found Natufian material at several of her pioneering excavations in the Mount Carmel region, including el-Wad, Kebara and Tabun, as did the French archaeologist René Neuville, firmly establishing the Natufian culture in the regional prehistoric chronology. As early as 1931, both Garrod and Neuville drew attention to the presence of stone sickles in Natufian assemblages and the possibility that this represented a very early agriculture.


title: Natufian culture

text: Radiocarbon dating places the Natufian culture at an epoch from the terminal Pleistocene to the very beginning of the Holocene, a time period between 12,500 and 9,500 BC.


title: Natufian culture

text: The period is commonly split into two subperiods: Early Natufian (12,000–10,800 BC) and Late Natufian (10,800–9,500 BC). The Late Natufian most likely occurred in tandem with the Younger Dryas (10,800 to 9,500 BC). The Levant hosts more than a hundred kinds of cereals, fruits, nuts, and other edible parts of plants, and the flora of the Levant during the Natufian period was not the dry, barren, and thorny landscape of today, but rather woodland.


title: Natufian culture

text: The Natufian developed in the same region as the earlier Kebaran industry. It is generally seen as a successor, which evolved out of elements within that preceding culture. There were also other industries in the region, such as the Mushabian culture of the Negev and Sinai, which are sometimes distinguished from the Kebaran or believed to have been involved in the evolution of the Natufian.


title: Natufian culture

text: More generally there has been discussion of the similarities of these cultures with those found in coastal North Africa. Graeme Barker notes there are: "similarities in the respective archaeological records of the Natufian culture of the Levant and of contemporary foragers in coastal North Africa across the late Pleistocene and early Holocene boundary". According to Isabelle De Groote and Louise Humphrey Natufians practiced the Iberomaurusian and Capsian custom of sometimes extracting their maxillary central incisors (upper front teeth).


title: Natufian culture

text: Ofer Bar-Yosef has argued that there are signs of influences coming from North Africa to the Levant, citing the microburin technique and "microlithic forms such as arched backed bladelets and La Mouillah points." But recent research has shown that the presence of arched backed bladelets, La Mouillah points, and the use of the microburin technique was already apparent in the Nebekian industry of the Eastern Levant. And Maher et al. state that, "Many technological nuances that have often been always highlighted as significant during the Natufian were already present during the Early and Middle EP [Epipalaeolithic] and do not, in most cases, represent a radical departure in knowledge, tradition, or behavior."


title: Natufian culture

text: Authors such as Christopher Ehret have built upon the little evidence available to develop scenarios of intensive usage of plants having built up first in North Africa, as a precursor to the development of true farming in the Fertile Crescent, but such suggestions are considered highly speculative until more North African archaeological evidence can be gathered. In fact, Weiss et al. have shown that the earliest known intensive usage of plants was in the Levant 23,000 years ago at the Ohalo II site.


title: Natufian culture

text: Anthropologist C. Loring Brace (1993) cross-analysed the craniometric traits of Natufian specimens with those of various ancient and modern groups from the Near East, Africa and Europe. The Late Pleistocene Epipalaeolithic Natufian sample was described as problematic due to its small size (consisting of only three males and one female), as well as the lack of a comparative sample from the Natufians' putative descendants in the Neolithic Near East. Brace observed that the Natufian fossils lay between those of the Niger-Congo-speaking populations and the other samples (Near East, Europe), which he suggested may point to a Sub-Saharan influence in their constitution. Subsequent ancient DNA analysis of Natufian skeletal remains by Lazaridis et al. (2016) found that the specimens instead were a mix of 50% Basal Eurasian ancestral component (see Archaeogenetics) and 50% West-Eurasian Unknown Hunter Gatherer (UHG) population related to European Western Hunter-Gatherers.


title: Natufian culture

text: According to Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen, "It seems that certain preadaptive traits, developed already by the Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran populations within the Mediterranean park forest, played an important role in the emergence of the new socioeconomic system known as the Natufian culture."


title: Natufian culture

text: Settlements occur mostly in Israel and Palestine. This could be deemed the core zone of the Natufian culture, but Israel is a place that has been excavated more frequently than other places hence the greater number of sites. During the years more sites have been found outside the core zone of Israel and Palestine stretching into what now is Lebanon, Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev desert. The settlements in the Natufian culture was larger and more permanent. Some Natufian sites had stone built architecture; Ain Mallaha is an example of round stone structures. Cave sites are also seen frequently during the Natufian culture. El-wad is a Natufian cave site with occupation in the front part of the cave also called the terrace. Some Natufian sites were located in forest/steppe areas and others near inland mountains. The Natufian settlements appear to be the first to exhibit evidence of food storage; not all Natufian sites have storage facilities, but they have been identified at certain sites.