Saudi Arabia: KACCC Announces Winners of Cultural Communication Award

KACCC announced the winners of the fourth edition of the Cultural Communication Award during a news conference held in Riyadh. SPA
KACCC announced the winners of the fourth edition of the Cultural Communication Award during a news conference held in Riyadh. SPA
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Saudi Arabia: KACCC Announces Winners of Cultural Communication Award

KACCC announced the winners of the fourth edition of the Cultural Communication Award during a news conference held in Riyadh. SPA
KACCC announced the winners of the fourth edition of the Cultural Communication Award during a news conference held in Riyadh. SPA

The King Abdulaziz Center for Cultural Communication (KACCC) announced the winners of the fourth edition of the Cultural Communication Award during a news conference held at the center’s Riyadh headquarters in the presence of KACCC Secretary-General Abdullah Al-Fawzan, his deputy Ibrahim Al-Asiri and representatives from various media outlets.

Al-Fawzan stated that media and cultural contacts are among the most important pillars of communication between peoples of different civilizations. He underscored the pivotal role of media in conveying ideas, facilitating cultural exchange, and aiding societies in mutual understanding and acquaintance.
This year's Cultural Communication Award witnessed an increase in engagement, with 234 participants in the five award categories.

In the government institutions category, the Saudi Authority for Industrial Cities and Technology Zones "MODON" and the Taibah University emerged as winners with their initiatives about "cultural communication cities" and "ambassadors of moderation," respectively.

Meanwhile, Scientist’s Gift Organization’s initiative dubbed “the Saudi Cultural Day” won in the civil-society institutions category. The award for the non-profit international organizations and institutions category went to the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States for its initiative about "a reference guide to raising students' awareness of the values of tolerance and acceptance of others."

As for the private-sector institutions branch, Alfaisal University won with the culture day, people for people, and Noor for the visually impaired initiatives. In the individuals category, Dr. Sultan bin Suleiman Al-Anzi won with an initiative about rapid progress towards bright and just education.



Thousands Greet the Winter Solstice at the Ancient Stonehenge Monument

A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)
A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)
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Thousands Greet the Winter Solstice at the Ancient Stonehenge Monument

A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)
A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)

Thousands of tourists, pagans, druids and people simply yearning for the promise of spring marked the dawn of the shortest day of the year at the ancient Stonehenge monument on Saturday.

Revelers cheered and beat drums as the sun rose at 8:09 a.m. (0809 GMT) over the giant standing stones on the winter solstice — the shortest day and the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere. No one could see the sun through the low winter cloud, but that did not deter a flurry of drumming, chanting and singing as dawn broke.

There will be less than eight hours of daylight in England on Saturday — but after that, the days get longer until the summer solstice in June.

The solstices are the only occasions when visitors can go right up to the stones at Stonehenge, and thousands are willing to rise before dawn to soak up the atmosphere.

The stone circle, whose giant pillars each took 1,000 people to move, was erected starting about 5,000 years ago by a sun-worshiping Neolithic culture, according to The AP. Its full purpose is still debated: Was it a temple, a solar calculator, a cemetery, or some combination of all three?

In a paper published in the journal Archaeology International, researchers from University College London and Aberystwyth University said the site on Salisbury Plain, about 128 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of London, may have had political as well as spiritual significance.

That follows from the recent discovery that one of Stonehenge’s stones — the unique stone lying flat at the center of the monument, dubbed the “altar stone” — originated in Scotland, hundreds of miles north of the site. Some of the other stones were brought from the Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, nearly 240 kilometers (150 miles) to the west,

Lead author Mike Parker Pearson from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology said the geographical diversity suggests Stonehenge may have served as a “monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.”