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A Dubai restaurant has opened that prides itself on having the world’s “first AI chef”, the latest ostentatious dive into new technology in a city obsessed with being on the cutting edge of the future.The Emirati city has become increasingly known for its growing culinary scene, with thousands of restaurants on offer from luxurious Michelin-starred eateries to greasy spoons serving up bona fide street food from across the Middle East and Asia.But at Woohoo, the brains behind the menu is not a person but an AI programme — known as chef Aiman — trained on thousands of recipes and decades of culinary research and molecular gastronomy.Chef Aiman can also optimise menus and balance flavours, according to the establishment.The real work of preparing and serving the food, however, remains in human hands, for now.”AI is going to create better dishes than humans maybe in the future,” said the restaurant’s Turkish co-founder Ahmet Oytun Cakir.While Woohoo’s menu is mostly comprised of international fusion dishes, some AI creations stand out. This includes a “dinosaur tartare” meant to recreate the taste of extinct reptiles.The restaurant did not reveal the dinosaur tartare recipe, which was created using DNA mapping.Priced at roughly 50 euros ($58), the dish tastes like a combination of raw meats and is served on a pulsating plate to appear as if it were breathing.”It was a total surprise. It was so delicious,” said customer Efe Urgunlu.Along with AI-generated holograms and sci-fi animation, the heart of the neon-lit venue features a giant cylindrical computer — presented as the digital mainframe powering the restaurant’s lights and smoke shows.- ‘I don’t believe in it’ -Woohoo’s Turkish chef Serhat Karanfiloversees the cooking and the final presentation and admits that he does not always agree with the AI chef’s choices and selections.”If I taste it, for example, and it is too spicy, I talk to chef Aiman again. After we discuss, we find the right balance,” he said.Cakir has high hopes that chef Aiman will one day become “the next Gordon Ramsay — but AI”.Not everyone in Dubai’s vibrant food scene is convinced.For Michelin-starred chef Mohamad Orfali, “there is no such thing as an AI chef”.”I don’t believe in it,” the Syrian Dubai-based chef told AFP.His Orfali Bros restaurant snatched a Michelin star last year, after Dubai became the first Middle Eastern city to join the prestigious guide in 2022.Cooking requires “nafas”, or soul, Orfali explained, using the Arabic term that describes a cook’s personal flair for food and their ability to conjure up exceptional meals.”Artificial intelligence lacks feelings and memories; in short, it has no nafas… It can’t imbue it into food.”- Dubai ideas -Orfali said he limited the use of AI in his own establishment to administrative tasks like setting the kitchen schedule and providing additional research.”We use it as a kitchen assistant, but ultimately, it won’t cook,” he said.Nonetheless, Woohoo has resonated with customers accustomed to the lavish offerings of Dubai, a tech-forward megalopolis with a proclivity for extravagance where AI has its own minister.”Everyone is supporting these ideas here in Dubai,” said Cakir.The restaurant has also created a social media buzz, with an Instagram account dedicated to the AI Chef that features chef Aiman’s avatar in videos sharing tips and recipes.Dio, a customer who didn’t give her last name, said she visited the restaurant after seeing the craze around it.”It is such a creative concept, so I thought I must experience it myself,” she said.”The dishes were extraordinary.”

Ministers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied nations (OPEC+) are expected to keep current output levels unchanged when they meet for online meetings on Sunday, analysts told AFP.The biannual ministerial meeting comes as uncertainty remains over how oil prices will develop in the near future, with traders looking for signs that indicate progress in ongoing negotiations on resolving the conflict in Ukraine, which could lead to the return of Russian crude to markets.Since April, eight key OPEC+ members led by Saudi Arabia and Russia have boosted production in an effort to regain market share amid strong competition from producers outside the group such as the United States, Canada and Guyana.But in early November, the V8 group announced they would pause their output increases in the first quarter of 2026 due to expected lower seasonal demand, following a small increase in December.The OPEC+ ministerial meeting is thus “unlikely to deliver any major new drivers for the market”, said Commerzbank analyst Barbara Lambrecht.”A ceasefire would likely stop mutual attacks on energy infrastructure, and sanctions might be eased or even lifted,” which would reduce the risk premium that is currently driving up oil prices, she said.A deadlock in negotiations, however, “could force (US President Donald) Trump to tighten sanctions again” against Russia’s oil industry, likely pushing oil prices higher, said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, an analyst at Global Risk Management.Uncertainty around the future of oil prices has reinforced analysts’ belief that OPEC+ will maintain group-wide current output levels as earlier predicted by the group of eight.At its previous ministerial meeting, the group said it plans to assess the maximum sustainable production capacity for each member country, which will serve as a benchmark for quotas from 2027 onwards.”There’s some noise around how there could be some discussions around baseline production levels,” said Kim Fustier, an analyst at HSBC.However, Fustier believed it was “still too soon for them to be discussing it” and that the group would wait until 2026.

Pope Leo XIV wraps up a four-day trip to Turkey Sunday after a warm welcome by its tiny Christian community, before heading to Lebanon with a message of peace for the crisis-mired nation. On his first overseas trip since being elected leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before travelling to Iznik for a celebration marking 1,700 years since the First Council of Nicaea, one of the early Church’s most important gatherings. On Saturday, the American pope hosted thousands of worshippers who battled the rain to attend a public mass in Istanbul, with many travelling from across Turkey to join the multilingual service, which left many moved by its beautiful and haunting choral interludes. On his final morning, Leo was expected to attend a prayer service at the Armenian cathedral then lead a divine liturgy — the Orthodox equivalent of mass — at the Patriarchal Church of St. George before a final blessing. He will have lunch with Patriarch Bartholomew I, the leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, a day after they signed a joint declaration in which they pledged to take “new and courageous steps on the path towards unity”.- Next stop Lebanon -Despite doctrinal differences that led to the Great Schism of 1054, resulting in a split between the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the two sides maintain dialogue and hold joint celebrations.They also agreed to continue their efforts to establish a common date for Easter, which is currently celebrated by Catholics and Orthodox Christians on different days.The pope’s trip comes as the Orthodox world appears more fragmented than ever, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accelerating the split between the Moscow and Constantinople patriarchates.Pope Leo is the fifth pontiff to visit Turkey, after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014.He is expected to leave Istanbul 1145 GMT and fly to Beirut for a visit lasting until Tuesday.The six-day two-nation trip is the first major international test for the first pope from the United States, who was elected head of the Catholic Church in May and whose understated style contrasts with that of his charismatic and impulsive predecessor, Francis.Although Leo’s visit drew little attention in Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation of 86 million whose Christian community numbers only around 100,000, it is eagerly awaited in Lebanon, a religiously diverse country of 5.8 million inhabitants.Since 2019 Lebanon has been ravaged by crises, including an economic collapse, a devastating port blast in Beirut in 2020 and the recent war with Israel.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza on Saturday said more than 70,000 people have been killed since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted more than two years ago.The milestone comes as a fragile US-brokered ceasefire largely holds, but with both sides accusing the other of violating the terms of the deal.In a statement, Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll from the war had risen to 70,100.The ministry said that since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10, 354 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire.Two bodies arrived at hospitals in the Gaza Strip in the past 48 hours, the ministry said, one of which had been recovered from beneath the rubble.It noted that the spike from the last death toll was due to the fact that the data relating to 299 bodies had been processed and approved by the authorities. Despite the ceasefire, the Palestinian territory remains in a deep humanitarian crisis.The latest toll comes as the United Nations marks the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, on November 29 each year.”In so many ways, this tragedy has tested the norms and laws that have guided the international community for generations,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.”The killing of so many civilians, the repeated displacement of an entire population and the obstruction of humanitarian aid should never be acceptable under any circumstances,” he continued.”The recent ceasefire offers a glimmer of hope. It is now vital that all parties respect it fully and work in good faith towards solutions that restore and uphold international law.”The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.On that day, militants abducted 251 people into Gaza.At the start of the latest ceasefire, militants were holding 20 living hostages and the bodies of 28 deceased captives.Hamas has since released all the living hostages and returned the remains of 26 dead hostages.In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in its custody and returned the bodies of hundreds of dead Palestinians.

A prominent Tunisian activist was arrested on Saturday as hundreds protested in the capital against the curtailing of freedoms, an AFP journalist and lawyers said.The protest in Tunis came a day after a mass appeal trial saw some 40 public figures, mainly critics of President Kais Saied, handed hefty sentences over plotting against the state.Poet and political figure Chaima Issa, who was handed a 20-year sentence during the trial on Friday, was arrested during the rally, lawyers and witnesses said.”We were marching in the protest when a group of plainclothes officers grabbed her and pushed her inside a vehicle,” Issa’s lawyer, Samir Dilou, told AFP.”They could have arrested her the day of the verdict at her home,” Dilou added. “She wasn’t going anywhere. If she wanted to go on the run, why would she be demonstrating?”The protest, called by Tunisia’s leading women rights groups the Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) and Aswat Nissa, denounced what many see as a growing clampdown on dissent and rights defenders in Tunisia.”This protest comes amid the authorities’ systematic suppression of free speech and the free voices of activists, journalists and others,” said Nadia Benhamed, a senior member of the ATFD.”We reject the suppression of freedoms,” she added. “Freedom of expression and thought is our right.”Tunisia emerged as the only democracy of the Arab Spring.But since Saied staged a sweeping power grab in 2021, rights groups have criticised a major rollback on freedoms.Dozens of Saied critics have been prosecuted or jailed, including on terrorism-related charges and under a law the president enacted in 2022 to prohibit “spreading false news”.”We won’t give up on our gains and on our freedoms,” said Manel Othmani, another protester and activist. “We can’t surrender the freedom of speech we’ve gained since 2011.”Friday’s mass trial saw defendants sentenced to up to 45 years in prison — down from 66 in April — over charges of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group”, according to court documents viewed by AFP.A European Parliament vote on Thursday called for the release of “all those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression, including political prisoners and human rights defenders” in Tunisia.But Saied condemned the resolution as “blatant interference”, saying the European Union could “learn lessons from us on rights and freedoms”.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Syria’s northern city of Aleppo Saturday as the country marks a year since a lightning Islamist-led offensive that eventually toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad last December.The Islamist alliance, led by Sharaa, entered Aleppo on November 29 last year and swiftly took control of Syria’s second city.”Aleppo was reborn, and with its rebirth, all of Syria was reborn. In moments like these, a new history for all of Syria was being written, through Aleppo and its proud citadel,” Sharaa said on Saturday, addressing a crowd of hundreds from outside the city’s famous monument.Shortly afterwards, he appeared at the top of the citadel’s tower near a huge Syrian flag.Aleppo was an early venue for anti-Assad demonstrations in 2011 that spiralled into civil war.For four years the city was divided between a government loyalist sector in the west — with most of the population — and rebels in a small zone in the east.The Assad government was accused of dropping barrel bombs from helicopters and other aircraft onto rebel areas, while the insurgents fired rockets into government territory.Ally Russia came to Assad’s assistance in September 2015, helping government forces to lay siege to the rebel zone by cutting off its last supply route.Assad’s forces reclaimed complete control of the city on December 22, 2016 when a final convoy of rebels and civilians left eastern Aleppo.Sharaa’s Islamist forces launched their lightning offensive on November 27 last year.They went on to seize Damascus on December 8, toppling Assad and ending more than half a century of his family dynasty’s iron-fisted rule.