Widening Madinah’s art horizon

Sun, 2018-07-01 00:20 JEDDAH:  Saudi artists mingled with inquisitive guests at the Al-Madinah Art Center at its opening on Friday night, where many were awestruck to see such works for the first time in their city.  Located in a vast outdoor space at King Fahd Park, on the southwest side of Quba’ Mosque in Madinah Al-Munawarah, the center was built under the patronage of Madinah Gov. Prince Faisal bin Salman, who visited the center...

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UNESCO adds 8 pre-Islamic Iranian sites to heritage list

Author:  AFP Sat, 2018-06-30 16:20 ID:  1530380035557804000 MANAMA: UNESCO on Saturday added eight pre-Islamic Iranian archaeological sites to its World Heritage List, the UN agency announced at a meeting in the Bahraini capital. The sites collectively appear on the worldwide list as the “Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars region (Islamic Republic of Iran).” A province in modern-day Iran’s south, Fars was the cradle...

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Saudi woman designs abayas for freer lifestyles

Author:  Reuters Thu, 2018-06-28 12:00 ID:  1530370141156425400 JEDDAH: When Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving ended on Sunday, fashion designer Eman Joharjy and her friends drove to Jeddah’s seafront where they exchanged their car for bicycles. The colorful, embroidered jumpsuit abayas they donned stood out among the sea of women wearing similar loose-fitting full-length robes but in the traditional black. Yet no one stopped...

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Book review: ‘The Baghdad Clock’ is a magical take on life in Iraq

Author:  Saffiya Ansar Sat, 2018-06-30 16:00 ID:  1530363673685577800 CHICAGO: Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2018, Shahad Al-Rawi’s extraordinary debut novel, “The Baghdad Clock,” turns life in embattled Iraq into a fantastical world of characters and memories that serve as fuel for those who have lived and loved through the years of war. The book follows two young girls who first meet in a...

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Bella Hadid reacts as Drake’s album fuels romance rumors

Author:  Saffiya Ansar Sat, 2018-06-30 15:52 ID:  1530363155675468600 DUBAI: Canadian rapper Drake set the Internet alight on Friday when he dropped his latest album, “Scorpion.” Spotify said the album was streaming at an average rate of 10 million times an hour on Friday, while Apple Music said it was the No. 1 streamed album in 92 countries. On the 25-track double album, Drake, 31, confirms long-standing rumors that he...

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Mumbai’s Victorian Gothic and Art Deco buildings win UNESCO status

Author:  AFP Sat, 2018-06-30 08:50 ID:  1530349148284573500 MANAMA, Bahrain: Mumbai’s Art Deco buildings — believed to be the world’s second largest collection after Miami — were added on Saturday to UNESCO’s World Heritage List alongside the city’s better-known Victorian Gothic architecture. A not-for-profit team of enthusiasts are in the process of documenting every single one but they estimate there may be more than 200...

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Maverick entrepreneur’s space rocket fails at blast off

Author:  AFP Sat, 2018-06-30 04:30 ID:  1530333651134259700 TOKYO: A rocket developed by a maverick Japanese entrepreneur and convicted fraudster exploded shortly after liftoff Saturday, in a major blow to his bid to send Japan’s first privately backed rocket into space. Interstellar Technologies, founded by popular Internet service provider Livedoor’s creator Takafumi Horie, launched the unmanned rocket, MOMO-2, at around...

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How an Edinburgh center is tracing the roots of plants in the Middle East

Sat, 2018-06-30 01:30 EDINBURGH: The Arabian Peninsula is rich in many things — oil (obviously), literature, history, cuisine. But far away in Edinburgh is a treasure trove of other Middle Eastern riches — plants. The Scottish capital is home to the Center for Middle Eastern Plants (CMEP) and a herbarium — or plant library — containing a staggering 3 million samples of flora from the region. And botanists from the center are still adding to...

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Haifaa Al-Mansour hopes to empower young women with her latest film ‘Mary Shelley’

Author:  Fri, 2018-06-29 15:18 Before Saudi Arabia ended its 35-year ban on cinemas, before it began the construction of its own full-fledged movie industry, Saudi Arabian film was still making headlines and garnering praise across the world through the work of Haifaa Al-Mansour. With her 2005 documentary “Women Without Shadows,” and her groundbreaking 2012 film “Wadjda” — the first movie to be shot entirely in the Kingdom — Al-Mansour...

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The UK’s biggest celebration of Arabic arts and culture celebrates its 20th anniversary

Author:  Fri, 2018-06-29 14:30 LIVERPOOL: Historically, Liverpool has attracted international attention for many reasons: most famously as the breeding place of the most successful band ever, The Beatles, home of England’s second most-successful football team, Liverpool FC, and as the site of venerable horse race the Grand National. But today it also deserves to be celebrated as a leading promoter of Arab art and culture. This summer...

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Three Pakistanis receive Queen’s Young Leaders award

Wed, 2018-06-27 16:07 ISLAMABAD: Three Pakistanis, Mahnoor Syed, Hassan Mujtaba and Haroon Yasin, have been honored with the Queen’s Young Leaders awards. Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, joined Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace for a reception honoring the Queen’s Young Leaders on Tuesday. The award recognizes and celebrates exceptional people aged 18 to 29 from across the Commonwealth countries, who are taking the lead in their...

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Louvre Abu Dhabi sets Da Vinci unveiling for September

Author:  AFP Wed, 2018-06-27 12:46 ID:  1530106336657951800 DUBAI: The Louvre Abu Dhabi said Wednesday it will unveil its most prized acquisition on Sept. 18 — a very rare painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci that was bought for a record $450 million last year. The “Salvator Mundi,” a portrait of Jesus Christ painted in 1500, was the only one of the fewer than 20 paintings believed to be the work of the famed Renaissance...

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Moschino under fire for campaign starring Gigi Hadid

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Cute carnivores and beautiful birds: Six national animals from across the Arab world

Author:  Saffiya Ansar Wed, 2018-06-27 15:39 ID:  1530103340247683600 DUBAI: While the national animal of Scotland is none other than the fantastical unicorn, these countries have chosen decidedly more down to earth creatures as their mascots. Algeria The adorable fennec fox, with its oversized ears and bushy tail, is the national animal of Algeria and is even used as a nickname for its national football team. With its pointy...

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Rebel Wilson ordered to pay back $3 million plus interest

Author:  AFP Wed, 2018-06-27 05:11 ID:  1530076571716276300 SYDNEY: Hollywood actress Rebel Wilson was ordered to return almost $3.1 million with interest to an Australian publisher Wednesday after a defamation payout was slashed on appeal. The “Pitch Perfect” star was awarded A$4.5 million ($3.3 million) in damages against Bauer Media last September over articles claiming she lied about her age and background to further...

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‘I am a refugee,’ Amal Clooney tells Toronto audience

Tue, 2018-06-26 15:08 Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney spoke candidly about the international refugee crisis in an interview with her father-in-law, veteran broadcaster Nick Clooney, during an appearance at Toronto’s Luminato arts festival over the weekend. The Beirut-born lawyer and wife of Hollywood heavyweight George Clooney paid tribute to the UK government in her comments. “I am a refugee,” Amal Clooney said to a pin-drop quiet audience...

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‘Loving Pablo:’ A tragic love story fueled by drug money

Tue, 2018-06-26 14:28 CHENNAI: Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have been paired together onscreen for years now — from 1992’s “Jamón Jamón” to Woody Allen's 2008 comedy-drama “Vicky Christina Barcelona” and most recently in Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes opening, “Everybody Knows” — and their chemistry has not subsided. Set to hit UAE theaters on June 28 after it premiered at the 74th Venice Film Festival in September, director Fernando...

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New ‘Banksy’ mural of veiled woman in mourning appears next to Bataclan in Paris

Author:  AFP Mon, 2018-06-25 17:04 ID:  1529999431947231200 Paris-An image of a woman veiled in mourning appeared next to the Bataclan concert hall in Paris Monday, the latest attributed to the mysterious British street artist Banksy. The stencilled mural next to the emergency exit from which hundreds fled the massacre by jihadist gunman in 2015, is the eighth apparently created by the artist in the French capital in recent...

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Call to ban foreign cooks in Malaysia elicits mixed reactions

Author:  Nor Arlene Tan Mon, 2018-06-25 18:52 ID:  1529941911450961800 KUALA LUMPUR: There are mixed reactions from restaurant and food stall owners across Malaysia to a call by Human Resource Minister M. Kulasegaran to ban foreign cooks by Jan. 1, 2019. The government has since changed its tone, on Saturday saying the call was “merely a suggestion,” and it will “consult various stakeholders.” Some 250,000 foreign workers...

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Street artist Banksy splashes Paris with works on migrants

Author:  AP Mon, 2018-06-25 (All day) ID:  1529929464989253700 PARIS: Banksy is believed to have taken his message on migration to Paris, which has seen seven works attributed to the provocative British street artist. The works attributed to Banksy have been discovered in recent days, including one near a former center for migrants at the city’s northern edge that depicts a child spray-painting wallpaper over a swastika. Nicolas...

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