Monday, September 21, 2009 RIYADH: Boasting one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, a team of top scientists and a campus where female and male students can mingle freely, Saudi Arabia's new multi-billion dollar university aims to break both scientific and social barriers.Officially the goal of this week's launch of the sprawling new facility is to propel the kingdom into the heady global ranks of technological research.But with women on campus not having to shroud themselves in the black abaya and allowed to drive cars, an unstated aim is to chip away at the strict restrictions on Saudi women imposed by hardline Muslim clerics.On Wednesday the monarch, in a keystone of his attempts to power his country into the 21st century, will open the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology -- KAUST -- probably the only postgraduate research university ever built from scratch.Both the ambition and the billions of dollars thrown at the project have sparked deep interest i...
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