Israel and Palestine have grappled with enduring territorial disputes and complex geopolitical tensions across generations. In this profound TED Membership conversation, Palestinian peace activist Ali Abu Awwad and Israeli founder of...

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis served as President Trump’s first defense secretary, resigning his post in protest after Trump announced he would pull U.S. forces out of Syria. Now, Mattis has written a book, “Call Sign Chaos:...

Three months ago, President Biden ended American military involvement in

the war in Yemen and reversed President Trump's decision to designat
e the
Houthis a terrorist organization. But soon after, as special...

Journalist Mustafa Akyol talks about the way that some local cultural practices (such as the seclusion of women) have become linked, in the popular mind, to the articles of faith of Islam. Has the world's general idea of the Islamic...

Sheryl WuDunn's book "Half the Sky" investigates the oppression of women globally. Her stories shock. Only when women in developing countries have equal access to education and economic opportunity will we be using all our human resources.

How much land mass would renewables need to power a nation like the UK? An entire country's worth. In this pragmatic talk, David MacKay tours the basic mathematics that show worrying limitations on our sustainable energy options ... and...

Hank sets the record straight for us, discussing a rain of spiders in Brazil (!?), a new virus that has the internet all a-twitter, and another asteroid recently found to have hit the Earth (not the one in Siberia!) - are...

Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani takes to the TEDxSummit stage in Doha, Qatar to take on serious issues in the Middle East -- like how many kisses to give when saying “Hi,” and what not to say on an American airplane.

There's no actual law against women driving in Saudi Arabia. But it's forbidden. Two years ago, Manal al-Sharif decided to encourage women to drive by doing so -- and filming herself for YouTube. Hear her story of what happened next.

Fish are smarter than you think! Scientists have explored triggerfish's ability to learn some clever hunting tactics.

In 1987, thousands of people gathered in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage. But what started out as a celebration led to a worldwide health crisis: more than 2,000 cases of meningitis broke out, spreading across Saudi Arabia...

Here's a paradox you don't hear much about: despite a century of creating machines to do our work for us, the proportion of adults in the uS with a job has consistently gone up for the past 125 years. Why hasn't human labor become...

From the deserts of Saudi Arabia to the depths of the North Sea, archaeologists are rewriting history. Near Riyadh, a stunning 8,000-year-old settlement with a stone temple and sophisticated irrigation systems reveals how ancient...

The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic. It’s helpful to understand that the Arabic language is a Semitic language with more than thirty variations spoken throughout the Middle East. These variations can be grouped into three...

Many people in Indonesia believe in the spiritual power behind objects and forces, and most societies have organized ceremonies and rituals to mollify these spirits. In Indonesia, traditional animist beliefs have been combined with the...

The G20 is a powerful, informal group of nineteen countries and the European Union. It also includes a representative from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The list evolved from an effort to include major developing...

Like many aspects of Saudi Arabia, the country’s economy is a mix of contradictions. Thanks to its abundant oil reserves, Saudi Arabia is the 19th-largest economy in the world. The country is a member of the G20 and has a per capita...

The legal system of Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia. Sharia is the paramount body of Islamic law, a collection of fundamental principles derived from different sources including the Holy Quran, the Sunna—the sayings and traditions of the...

Saudi Arabia is one of only two countries—the other being Vatican City—that do not have a separate legislative body. Political parties are banned, and there is no national legislative body or general elections. Historically, Saudi kings...

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an absolute Islamic monarchy that has been ruled by the Al Saud family since the country’s creation in 1932. The descendant kings serve as both head of state and head of government. All six kings of Saudi...

Despite popular perception that Saudi Arabia is a desert, the country actually has three climatic zones. There is a harsh, arid desert across most of the country. There is an area of steppe along the western highland region. There is...

Located in the southwest of Asia, Saudi Arabia forms a geographic and cultural bridge between the three continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe. As the world's 47th-largest country, Saudi Arabia is comprised of five geographical regions....

Saudi Arabia is a relatively young country, less than a century old. Learn about the political-religious alliance formed in the eighteenth century that provided the framework for Saudi expansion and remains the basis of its dynastic...

Enabled by the demise of the Ottoman Empire, after the First World War, Abdulaziz al-Saud, known as Ibn Saud, waged a long and arduous war to unite the disparate nomadic tribes from across the Arabian Peninsula. In 1932, the Kingdom of...