Female illiteracy rate decreased from 11.4% in 2014

MUSCAT: Researchers from Sultan Qaboos University, College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, have successfully established an experimental farm to produce barramundi or Asian sea bass fish.

The project, which received the support of The Research Council (TRC) for two years, focuses on researching methods of contributing to the national revenues through fish farming, both by increasing income and rationalising the volume of water used in fish farming.

Barramundi (Lates calcarifer) is found in the Indian Ocean and the west Pacific zone and it lives in fresh water, river mouth and some sea zones.

This type of fish is considered a new species that enters the aquaculture industry in the Sultanate. Over the past few years, a research group from the Marine Sciences section explored opportunities for breeding barramundi and it gained great experience in the field.

In 2016, a number of students managed to raise adult barramundi at an average size of 800 grams by the 10th month at the SQU’S aquaculture farm.

Pope Francis returned to Rome on Monday following his trip to Iraq, the first-ever by a pontiff, according to an AFP reporter on board his plane.

The 84-year-old’s packed three-day visit passed off without a hitch despite concerns about security and the coronavirus pandemic.

“Iraq will always remain with me, in my heart,” the pope said as he concluded his largest Mass and final public event in Iraq on Sunday in Arbil, the capital of the northern Kurdistan region.

He later met the father of Alan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian Kurdish toddler who became a symbol of the plight of migrants.

It capped off a trip in which Francis covered more than 1,400 kilometres inside the conflictravaged country. He brought encouragement to Iraq’s diminished Christian community and extended a hand by meeting top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.