Saudi, Kuwaiti Culture Ministers Sign MoU to Boost Cooperation

The Saudi Minister of Culture and the Kuwaiti Minister of Information and Culture and Minister of State for Youth Affairs have signed an MoU. SPA
The Saudi Minister of Culture and the Kuwaiti Minister of Information and Culture and Minister of State for Youth Affairs have signed an MoU. SPA
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Saudi, Kuwaiti Culture Ministers Sign MoU to Boost Cooperation

The Saudi Minister of Culture and the Kuwaiti Minister of Information and Culture and Minister of State for Youth Affairs have signed an MoU. SPA
The Saudi Minister of Culture and the Kuwaiti Minister of Information and Culture and Minister of State for Youth Affairs have signed an MoU. SPA

Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Farhan Al Saud and Kuwaiti Minister of Information and Culture and Minister of State for Youth Affairs Abdulrahman bin Bedah Al-Mutairi have met at the Riyadh International Book Fair.

During the meeting on Monday, the two ministers emphasized the deep-rooted historical and distinguished relations between the two countries and the importance of joint work in the cultural field under the umbrella of the Saudi-Kuwaiti Coordination Council.

The two ministers signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance cultural cooperation between the Kingdom’s Ministry of Culture and Kuwait’s National Council for Culture, Arts, and Literature (NCCAL).

The MoU aims to enhance collaboration in various cultural fields such as heritage, architecture, design, museums, visual arts, theater, performing arts, literature, publishing, translation, fashion, culinary arts, and film. It also involves sharing expertise on cultural systems, regulations, and policies and participating in each other's festivals and cultural events.

As members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), both parties will jointly coordinate agreements and contribute to strategic projects across various cultural sectors. Additionally, the MoU seeks to establish artistic residency programs and implement projects for preserving heritage in all its forms.

The MoU is based on longstanding historical ties and solid fraternal relations between the leaderships and peoples of the Kingdom and Kuwait. Its goal is to strengthen relations as part of the two countries' ongoing efforts to improve bilateral relations across different cultural aspects and to promote international cultural exchange, which aligns with the objectives of the National Culture Strategy under the umbrella of Saudi Vision 2030.

The Kuwaiti ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Sabah Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, was present at the meeting.



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.”