• MPs detected in foods and water across 10 Arab countries, raising health concerns • Bottled water, salt, seafood, meat, and poultry found contaminated with MPs • Marine plastic pollution is a major source of MPs in fish, mollusks, and crustaceans • High plastic use and poor waste systems drive dietary MP exposure in the Arab region • Urgent need for monitoring and policy to reduce MP risks to food safety and health : The widespread presence of microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) emerged as a global health concern. These particles have been detected in different components of the food chain, raising increasing concern regarding their potential effects on human health. This narrative review examines the existing body of literature on dietary exposure to MPs and NPs within the Arab region. Despite the growing use of plastics and escalating environmental pollution, research on dietary exposure to MPs and NPs in this region remains limited. : This narrative review screened multiple databases and identified 30 published research articles related to the presence of MPs and NPs in food and drinking water across the Arab countries. These articles were analyzed to examine key parameters, including particle type, size, shape, color, and the specific food or water sources affected. : MPs are prevalent across the Arab region, including Lebanon, Kuwait, Oman, Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Tunisia. Numerous food products, including bottled water, salt, meat and poultry have been reported to be heavily contaminated. Marine ecosystems, particularly in the Mediterranean and Red Seas, have shown substantial plastic pollution, contributing to the presence of MPs in marine species such as fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. These contaminated products enter the human food chain, leading to adverse health effects. : The presence of MPs and potential NP infiltration is due to the region’s high rates of plastic waste mismanagement, limited wastewater treatment infrastructure, and increasing plastic consumption. The findings underscore the need for comprehensive monitoring efforts and policy interventions to mitigate plastic pollution and its impact on food safety and public health in the Arab world.

Exploring administrative burden theory: The relationship between digital inclusion and human development.

Food additive perceptions and practices among young adults in four arab countries

Quality assurance in medicolegal (ML) reporting is essential to ensure accuracy, consistency, and compliance with legal and scientific standards. Since forensic opinions significantly influence judicial decisions, it is crucial to uphold high standards. In the Arab region, there are notable differences in forensic medicine practices among countries, emphasizing the urgent need for unified standards. Therefore, this initiative aims to improve the quality of ML reporting by proposing a standardized training and auditing framework based on international best practices, tailored to the realities of Arab forensic institutions. A key part of this article is developing a training framework grounded in best practices to unify forensic medical examiner competencies and reduce variability. At the same time, a specialized auditing framework has been created for senior forensic leaders to improve institutional accountability. This includes implementing a structured auditing protocol that uses newly adopted standardized checklists to assess report quality and detect non-conformities. Additionally, institutional leaders are encouraged to systematically investigate the root causes of substandard opinions within their organizations using Root Cause Analysis (RCA) methodology. Identifying these root causes offers opportunities for improvement. We recommend implementing this initiative through a Training of Trainers (TOT) model. This method enables institutional leaders and senior practitioners to disseminate standardized practices across all levels effectively. The multiplying effects of this initiative are vital for enhancing quality assurance and promoting continuous improvement within forensic practice across Arab countries.

Acquired brain injuries (ABI) cause cognitive impairments that significantly affect occupational performance and quality of life. Despite their prevalence in the Middle East, ABIs are underexplored in Lebanon, particularly in terms of cognitive assessment and rehabilitation. This study provides the first insights from Lebanon and the Arab region into Lebanese healthcare professionals' knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) regarding cognitive impairments following ABI. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Lebanon between January and April 2025 using a self-administered online questionnaire assessing KAP. The sample included 61 healthcare professionals actively working with adults with ABI. Participants demonstrated an overall level of knowledge (mean score: 72.76%). Attitudes were favorable toward continuing education, cultural adaptation of assessment tools, and combining standardized and non-standardized methods. Key barriers included limited specialized training, absence of locally validated tools, and insufficient context-adapted resources. Professional practices align with international recommendations; however, gaps remain in training and the availability of context-specific resources. These findings highlight the need for targeted training, culturally adapted tools, and structured clinical guidance to improve practice and inform policy.

Depression is highly prevalent among patients undergoing hemodialysis in Arab countries, adversely affecting quality of life, treatment adherence, and clinical outcomes. Despite its significance, mental health issues remain underdiagnosed and undertreated due to cultural stigma, limited healthcare integration, and resource constraints. This systematic review aims to evaluate the prevalence, key predictors, and management challenges of depression among hemodialysis patients in Arab countries. Following PRISMA guidelines, comprehensive searches of multiple databases were conducted for studies published from 2010 to June 2025. Inclusion criteria encompassed original quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research focusing on depression in dialysis patients across Arab nations. Data extraction and quality assessment used standard tools, with a narrative synthesis employed to integrate findings due to heterogeneity. Analysis of 59 studies revealed a high prevalence of depression, averaging 55.6%, with rates ranging from 18% to 86.9%. Key predictors include female gender, older age, longer dialysis duration, low socioeconomic status, and comorbidities. Cultural stigma, lack of integrated mental health services, and limited provider training pose significant management barriers. The findings underscore the substantial mental health burden among dialysis patients, exacerbated by socio-cultural factors unique to the region. Addressing these challenges requires culturally sensitive screening, integrated psychosocial support, and healthcare system reforms to improve early diagnosis and treatment. Depression among hemodialysis patients in Arab countries is a critical public health issue, necessitating multidisciplinary, culturally tailored strategies to enhance mental health care, improve adherence, and elevate overall patient outcomes.

Abstract Previous research has shown that economic sanctions affect public opinion in targeted countries, either by rallying the public around the incumbent government or turning them against the sanctioning actors. This study explores the effects of economic sanctions on popular political orientations, with a particular focus on democratic sanctions. We argue that, in response to external coercion in the name of democracy, the public is motivated to defend their own country, thereby triggering a backlash against democracy. Based on evidence from Arab states (2010–2019) and using instrumental variable estimation to address the endogeneity, our research reveals that democratic sanctions can trigger anti-democratic attitudes in targeted countries. Furthermore, the backlash effects intensify with the escalation of patriotic indoctrination, confirming that foreign pressure interacts with a state’s indoctrination potential in influencing public political orientations.

Abstract Legislative intervention to regulate family businesses has been rare globally. This article assesses recent legislative developments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the first law of its kind governing family businesses was recently introduced. It explores and analyses the new law's special dispute resolution mechanisms and provisions on the internal governance of family businesses. The article also identifies recent legal developments in Saudi Arabia, which are seen as the beginning of a new regulatory framework for family businesses. To advance the field, the article proposes an optimal regulatory framework for family businesses that takes into account their unique nature and characteristics. Specifically, this article proposes an opt-out model for governing family businesses instead of the opt-in model introduced in the UAE. The proposed model would ensure a more effective regulatory framework for family businesses.

The kafala system that governs labor migration in much of the Middle East is universally defined as a “sponsorship” system due to its legal requirement that all migrants have private sponsors. Yet nowhere in the translation-as-definition of kafala as “sponsorship” is there any indication of what kafala has done to the societies where it is practiced. This article turns to Lebanon to offer a conceptual framework that rethinks the kafala system not as sponsorship but as “national servitude,” meaning a system that divides society between nationalities who are meant to serve and nationalities who are meant to be served. Drawing on research conducted with African and Asian migrant workers in Beirut, the article frames kafala as a social consequence of the rise of Gulf capital and the attempted defeat of Third World internationalism in the Arab world. The kafala system, in other words, has not only embedded new forms of exploitation into everyday life, but might also be thought of as the violent insertion of servitude into the anticolonial vision of Arab, Asian, and African solidarity.

Attitudes toward people with epilepsy (PWE) have improved over recent decades, especially in high-income countries including Germany. However, this trend is less pronounced in low-income countries. This study aims to assess and compare attitudes toward PWE in two large ethnocultural minority groups in Berlin: Arabic and Vietnamese residents. Residents of Berlin aged 18years or older, born and raised in selected Arabic countries or Vietnam were invited to participate in a survey. We used a preliminary version of the standardized "Scales of Attitudes toward People with Epilepsy" (SAPE) questionnaire with scales on Social Distance, Stereotypes, Personal Concerns, and Emotional Reactions to PWE differentiated by Fear, Anger, and Pity/Compassion. In addition, the Caveness Questions (CQ) about personal experience with epilepsy and knowledge about epilepsy were assessed. Limiting comparability with previous literature and overall validity of findings was the use of a preliminary version of SAPE and the lack of formal validation of Vietnamese and Arabic translations of SAPE. A total of 297 participants were interviewed; 15 of those had never heard of epilepsy and were excluded from the analysis. Eventually, questionnaires of 133 Arabic and 149 Vietnamese interviewees (female sex, 43 vs. 68%; mean age, 34.8±9.7 vs. 34.0±12.4years; duration of stay in Germany, 6.0±5.1 vs. 7.9±9.4years) were considered. Multivariable Generalized Linear Model (GLM) analyses showed that Arabic compared to Vietnamese participants had higher objections to having one's own children play with PWE, but less likely deemed epilepsy as a mental disease; furthermore, they had lower objections to employment of PWE. In the SAPE scales, Arabic interviewees scored significantly lower for the 'Social Distance' and the 'Emotional Reactions: Fear' scale. A strong predictor for more positive attitudes across almost all SAPE subscales in both groups was higher education. Arabic and Vietnamese residents of Berlin differed in some specific facets of the attitude toward PWE. Attitudes were generally more positive than in surveys done in several Arabic countries and Vietnam. Higher levels of education predicted more positive attitudes in both groups calling for specific knowledge transfer to the general population on epilepsy and persons affected.

Impact of abstinence on employment, education, and health outcomes in Egyptian SUD rehabilitation clients: A three-year prospective study.

The article examines the historical aspects of the development of the Islamic banking system, which is based on the rules of Sharia and Islamic ethics, as well as the legal framework that regulates the activities of Islamic financial institutions. The study explores the fundamental principles and conceptual categories that characterize the unique model of banking. Based on the analysis of operations inherent in Islamic banking, the main items of the formation of liabilities are determined, and the structure of the assets of the balance sheet is presented. Based on the study of the set of economic relations and connections between the participants of the credit and financial system within the framework of the Islamic model of banking, the factors that form Islamic banking are substantiated and the prospects for its application for the development of national economies of Arab countries are assessed.

Abstract Did Turkey and the newly formed Arab states truly become mutually estranged following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire? By looking at the experiences of the Iraqi political elite and intellectual circles (booksellers, poets, educators, and historians) after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, this article challenges this narrative. I focus on the role played by the Kemalist movement ( al-ḥaraka al-kamāliyya ) in Iraq in the context of growing opposition to the British Mandate and I identify in particular two forms of Kemalism, which I describe as “regressive” and “inspirational”. Regressive Kemalism aimed at renewing former Ottoman relations in order to forge new ties with Turkey, thereby attempting to weaken British power in the country, while “inspirational Kemalism” promoted the policies implemented in Republican Turkey by Mustafa Kemal as a model for a possible future in Iraq. These dimensions emphasize the complex ways in which Ottoman and then Turkish influences continued to shape the Iraqi political and ideological landscape, even after the fall of the Empire.

Abstract This narrative review examines how regulatory authorities across Arab countries are adopting novel regulatory tools to streamline review and approval pathways, including expedited review mechanisms, reliance on assessments conducted by stringent regulatory authorities, conditional approvals, priority designations, emergency use authorizations, and digital submission systems such as the electronic Common Technical Document. A structured search of publicly available regulatory guidance, peer-reviewed literature, government publications, and regional policy documents from 2017 to December 2025 was conducted to compare the evolution and implementation of these frameworks across the region. The findings indicate that Saudi Arabia has integrated a comprehensive suite of regulatory tools—such as verification and abridged review pathways, priority review, conditional approval routes, and breakthrough designations—into a cohesive system that formally aims to shorten assessment timelines. Comparable reliance-based and accelerated pathways have been introduced in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman, with the Gulf Cooperation Council–centralized procedure providing an additional mechanism for regional work-sharing. Despite these developments, regulatory heterogeneity, limited capacity, restrictive pricing and reimbursement structures, insufficient real-world evidence (RWE) guidance, and evolving intellectual property considerations continue to present operational challenges. Potential solutions include harmonizing regulatory standards, strengthening institutional capacity, developing clear RWE frameworks, expanding digitalization efforts, integrating artificial intelligence (AI) tools where appropriate, and aligning pricing policies with accelerated approval objectives. Early AI initiatives in several Gulf countries—such as national AI authorities and automated dossier-screening technologies—suggest further opportunities to enhance regulatory efficiency. Continued cooperation among regulatory agencies, supported by the principles of the World Health Organization Good Regulatory Practices and Good Reliance Practices, will be essential to sustaining progress and improving timely, equitable access to medicines across the region.

IntroductionEEGLAB is a widely used software for analyzing electroencephalography (EEG) datasets, with over 20 years of global use. This bibliometric study investigates EEGLAB publications in the Asia-Pacific and Arabian regions, focusing on Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) indexed sources, to understand regional contributions and trends in EEG research across 80 countries and territories.MethodsBibliometric analysis was conducted using the Bibliometrix package in R, focusing on citations from WoS and Scopus indexed sources. The study covers data from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and West Asia (ESCWA), including 58 ESCAP countries and 22 ESCWA countries, with data collected until March 2024. Bibliometric indices such as Lotka's law, Bradford's law, co-citation networks, and in-depth historiography were analyzed to explore global and regional trends.ResultsEEGLAB's main article has received 22 298 citations on Google Scholar, with 14 958 (67.1%) citations in WoS and 15 827 (70.1%) in Scopus. The top ten WoS countries by citations are China, Australia, Japan, Republic of Korea, India, Iran, Russian Federation, Singapore, New Zealand, and Malaysia/Türkiye. Recent research themes include emotion recognition, driver distraction detection, deep learning, schizophrenia detection, and the cognitive impacts of COVID-19. China and the USA are the leading international collaborators.ConclusionsApproximately 35% of WoS documents and 41% of authors are from the ESCAP and ESCWA regions. The average citation per document in these regions is half of the global average. The study highlights EEGLAB's growing role in EEG research and collaborative trends.

This article explores the concept of family sustenance (al-nafqah) in classical Islamic jurisprudence, examining it both textually and contextually. It then relates this concept to the phenomenon of female breadwinners in Indonesia. In fiqh studies, the ideal concept still points to the dominance of the husband as the family breadwinner, a notion considered irrelevant today. However, Indonesia’s statistics show a high number of married women in this role. Consequently, the modern-era gap in family economic fulfillment has shifted in terms of rights and obligations. While most studies on female breadwinners in Indonesia have analyzed the phenomenon from the perspectives of family sociology, gender, and economics, few have linked it to the normative-ethical framework of Islam. Fazlur Rahman’s Double Movement theory is rarely used to interpret contemporary family income issues. This study bridges the gap between classical Islamic discourse and contemporary social realities in the cultural-practical realm. This normative study is based on a literature review of primary data sources, including Quranic verses related to family livelihood and leadership (e.g., Quran Chapter An-Nisāʾ [4:34]), classical and contemporary interpretations, and the major works of Fazlur Rahman, which form the theoretical foundation of the research. Secondary data were obtained from the 2025 Statistical Data Catalogue for Indonesia (Central Statistics Agency) on the BPS website. The collected data were analyzed using a contemporary interpretive model with a double-movement hermeneutic approach. The results of this study illustrate a shift in financial support from fiqh-oriented to fiqh-priority based on Quranic texts with universal values that aim to fulfill family needs through the dominance of the husband’s financial support. This shift occurred despite the past context being influenced by geographical factors and the patriarchal, particularistic, socio-cultural nature of the Arab nation. In the context of the modern family, however, the role of the wife as a breadwinner is necessary for cooperation between spouses in response to an increase in family members, to minimize gender discrimination, and to improve access to employment and reduce the wage gap. Therefore, Muslim families can realize the method of understanding the text of al-nafqah using universal values such as justice, compassion, trust, equality, deliberation, and protection, which has proven relevant in the modern era. The study contributes to developing a new family structure grounded in religious values that is more inclusive of gender role dynamics in the modern era.

This research aims to explore the impact of the Arab Spring on the total foreign aid provided to countries affected by this event. The primary focus is on how financial assistance is distributed by donors, distinguishing between support for government and civil society, and contrasting it with humanitarian aid and other types of assistance. In addition, this research investigates the potential indirect effect of the Arab Spring on the distribution of foreign aid to Arab countries that were not directly affected by the event. The aim is to assess whether foreign assistance has been reallocated, from unaffected Arab nations to those affected by the Arab Spring after 2010, and vice versa. The paper uses the synthetic difference-in-differences method (SDID), a new causal inference method that combines the synthetic control and difference-in-differences method to accomplish these goals. The results underscore foreign aid allocations’ intricate and dynamic characteristics following transformative events like the Arab Spring. Unforeseen shifts defy the study's initial assumptions, emphasizing the crucial influence of contextual factors in shaping donor decisions.

Dialectal variation presents a major challenge for deploying medical language models in real-world healthcare settings, where patient–clinician communication often occurs in regional vernaculars rather than standardized language forms. This challenge is particularly pronounced in the Arabic-speaking world, where clinical interactions frequently take place in diverse dialects that differ substantially from Modern Standard Arabic. Fine-tuning and maintaining separate models for each dialect is computationally inefficient and difficult to scale, motivating more integrated approaches. In this work, we present MENARA, an Arabic medical language model constructed by merging Egyptian Arabic, Moroccan Darija, and medical-domain specialists through model merging. We extend prior feasibility findings through comprehensive evaluation of cross-dialect performance, medical safety, and cross-lingual knowledge retention. Specifically, we introduce a fine-grained dialect composition analysis to quantify lexical purity and structured code-switching behavior, benchmark against state-of-the-art Arabic LLMs, conduct subject-matter-expert assessment of both dialectal fidelity and medical appropriateness. The results show that model merging preserves core medical competence while enabling robust dialectal adaptation, achieving strong cross-dialect fidelity while substantially reducing storage and deployment overhead compared to maintaining separate models. These findings establish model merging as a potentially practical and resource-efficient paradigm for dialect-aware medical NLP in linguistically fragmented healthcare environments.

This paper addresses the critical communication barrier experienced by deaf and hearing-impaired individuals in the Arab world through the development of an affordable, video-based Arabic Sign Language (ArSL) recognition system. Designed for broad accessibility, the system eliminates specialized hardware by leveraging standard mobile or laptop cameras. Our methodology employs Mediapipe for real-time extraction of hand, face, and pose landmarks from video streams. These anatomical features are then processed by a hybrid deep learning model integrating Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), specifically Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) layers. The CNN component captures spatial features, such as intricate hand shapes and body movements, within individual frames. Concurrently, BiLSTMs model long-term temporal dependencies and motion trajectories across consecutive frames. This integrated CNN-BiLSTM architecture is critical for generating a comprehensive spatiotemporal representation, enabling accurate differentiation of complex signs where meaning relies on both static gestures and dynamic transitions, thus preventing misclassification that CNN-only or RNN-only models would incur. Rigorously evaluated on the author-created JUST-SL dataset and the publicly available KArSL dataset, the system achieved 96% overall accuracy for JUST-SL and an impressive 99% for KArSL. These results demonstrate the system's superior accuracy compared to previous research, particularly for recognizing full Arabic words, thereby significantly enhancing communication accessibility for the deaf and hearing-impaired community.

The principle of national sovereignty underpins international law by guaranteeing state independence and its legislative authority without external interference. However, the interaction between domestic norms and international commitments has sparked debate, particularly in cases of potential normative conflicts. Two main theories explain this relationship: dualism, which distinguishes between the two legal systems, and monism, which gives primacy to international law. This study analyzes the impact of international treaties on national legal frameworks, focusing on the position of Arab States regarding human rights. It examines the Iraqi legal system, its incorporation of treaties, and their influence on the 2005 Constitution, as well as the role of the judiciary. Finally, a comparison with the Spanish legal system is presented to identify key similarities and differences.