Qatar Foundation and the NBA held a panel discussion Friday, titled 'Her Time to Play', at Education City aimed at fostering female empowerment through sports. The event featured Sylvia Fowles, a two-time WNBA champion, 2017 WNBA MVP, and an eight-time WNBA All-Star; Edniesha Curry, former WNBA player and current head coach of the Virgin Islands Men’s National Basketball Team; and Amal al-Keldi, Technical Affairs Coordinator at the Qatar Basketball Federation.Dozens of budding female basketball players, coaches, and trainers gathered for the talk, which explored topics about self-confidence, teamwork, and inspiration in sports. According to the organisers, the 'Her Time to Play' initiative, spearheaded by the NBA and WNBA, underlines a commitment to providing girls and women with opportunities to engage in basketball and pursue careers in coaching and athletic leadership.Sharing her insights and personal journey, Fowles credited her mother as her greatest inspiration, saying: “I really wasn’t into basketball, it took me to get into high school to appreciate the game and really have good coaches, but if I had to choose one person who really inspired me, that will have to be my mom, she is my biggest fan.”Al-Keldi, expressing her enthusiasm for the initiative, stressed its potential to instill invaluable life lessons in young athletes, both on and off the court. “This initiative can help the girls learn values not only on the court but also off the court,” she told 'Gulf Times' on the sidelines of the event, highlighting the importance of confidence and teamwork in shaping future leaders.Curry, meanwhile, echoed sentiments of empowerment, drawing parallels between her own experiences and the aspirations of the young athletes in attendance. “We operate in hundreds of countries around the world and get to work with young and inspiring women like you,” she said, citing the global impact of initiatives promoting female participation in sports.About the significance of teamwork in basketball and its impact on broader life experiences, Fowles underscored the transformative power of collaboration, saying: “The more we understand each other and help each other out, the outcome is always better.“When you can do things in a group, you learn these certain skills that do translate over and realised it. For me it was travelling overseas, fly to different countries, meeting new people, try new food, and basketball did that, without basketball I don’t think I have those opportunities,” she said, noting the profound life lessons learned through the sport.About navigating the challenges of balancing athletic pursuits with academic responsibilities, Fowles offered encouragement to aspiring athletes, highlighting the importance of time management and prioritisation.“If this is something that you are passionate about, something that you want to see flourish, of course, this is something that you have to put time into,” she pointed out.About developing self-confidence, Curry cited the value of confronting diverse challenges, embracing occasional setbacks, and the importance of resilience. She urged them to navigate discomfort by exposing themselves to new experiences, whether in unfamiliar countries, with different people or through trying new sports.“You might have a big challenge and you might fail, but the next morning you get up and you work hard and you do something to make a change, and the more time you do that the more confidence you have to lead yourself through these challenges, and I think that is important. The more time you try that, the easier it gets,” she said.

The UN decried Friday the intentional destruction of complex and hard-to-obtain medical equipment in Gaza's beleaguered hospitals and maternity wards, further deepening risks to women already giving birth in "inhumane, unimaginable conditions". Recent United Nations-led missions to 10 Gaza hospitals found many "in ruins" and just a couple capable of providing any level of maternal health services, said Dominic Allen, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) representative for the State of Palestine. He said that what the teams found at the Nasser hospital complex, long besieged by Israeli forces during their operations in the southern city of Khan Yunis, "breaks my heart". Speaking to journalists in Geneva via video-link from Jerusalem, he described seeing "medical equipment purposefully broken, ultrasounds -- which you will know, is a very important tool for helping ensure safe births -- with cables that have been cut". "Screens of complex medical equipment, like ultrasounds and others with the screens smashed," he added. The World Health Organization has described the difficulty of bringing such equipment into Gaza even before the current war erupted following Hamas's October 7 attack inside Israel. Allen warned that this "purposeful, wanton destruction in the maternity ward", coupled with other damage, and lacking water, sanitation and electricity, was complicating efforts to get what was previously the second-most important hospital in the Palestinian territory up and running again "to provide a lifeline". Meanwhile at Al-Khair, another specialised maternity hospital in Khan Yunis, "it didn't seem as if there was any piece of working medical equipment", he said, lamenting that the birthing rooms "stand silent". "They should be a place of giving life and they just have an eerie sense of death." Only 10 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are currently even partially functioning. And Allen said that only three of those were now capable of providing assistance to the estimated 180 women giving birth across Gaza every single day -- around 15 percent of whom suffer complications requiring significant care. The hospitals that can provide such care are thus facing significant capacity constraints. The Emirati Hospital in the south, which is the main maternity hospital in Gaza currently, is for instance supporting up to 60 births every single day, including as many as 12 Caesarian sections, he said. Given the heavy pressure on the facility, women are discharged just hours after giving birth, "and after C-sections, it is less than a day", Allen said, stressing "that increases risks". He said there was clearly a risk in the numbers of complicated procedures linked to "malnutrition, dehydration and fear, which impact the pregnant woman's ability to give birth safely and carry their baby to full term safely". A doctor at the Emirati hospital had told Allen that "he no longer sees normal-size babies". Amid a "completely crippled" health system in Gaza, the UNFPA is "deeply concerned about the ability to provide postnatal care", he said. He said that the agency was deploying midwives and midwifery kits to makeshift centres being set up in schools to help fill the gap.

HE Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari, Minister of Finance, held a meeting with Dr Fahad Mubarak al-Turki, chairman of the Arab Monetary Fund, on the sidelines of the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, in Washington, DC. Topics pertaining to mutual interests, particularly in the financial and ways to enhance financial stability in Arab countries, were discussed during the meeting, as well as measures aimed at broadening the scope of joint co-operation.