Largest Cultural Park Opens in Saudi Arabia

Governor of the Makkah Region Prince Khalid Al Faisal inaugurates the largest cultural park in Saudi Arabia. (SPA)
Governor of the Makkah Region Prince Khalid Al Faisal inaugurates the largest cultural park in Saudi Arabia. (SPA)
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Largest Cultural Park Opens in Saudi Arabia

Governor of the Makkah Region Prince Khalid Al Faisal inaugurates the largest cultural park in Saudi Arabia. (SPA)
Governor of the Makkah Region Prince Khalid Al Faisal inaugurates the largest cultural park in Saudi Arabia. (SPA)

Prince Khalid Al Faisal, advisor to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Governor of the Makkah Region, inaugurated on Thursday the largest cultural park in the west of Saudi Arabia. The opening was part of the Makkah Cultural Forum in its second edition, entitled "How to be a role model?"

The Cultural Park is located at Al-Nawras Square, on the waterfront of the coastal city of Jeddah, covering an area of ​​about 42,000 square meters.

It is one of the " Makkah Cultural Forum" programs and aims to make culture among of the most attractive options in tourism promotion campaigns and offer interactive knowledge and cultural ambiances for all the society’s segments.

It also aims to develop and promote the concepts of the “role model” and its applications, and introduce many events in the cultural, social, scientific, technical, technical and artistic areas.

The park includes a package of cultural activities, such as: electronic applications, interactive education, scientific innovations, skill festival, role model hall, robot world, exhibition of life on wheels and the role model in practicing marine sports. It also offers specialized workshops on the filming industry, as well as many accompanying shows organized by the Entertainment Authority.

As part of the cultural park event, which runs over 10 days (during the mid-year vacation), cultural competitions will be organized within a special pavilion, hosting and nominating cultural personalities who will be present at the forum.

As part of the cultural park initiative, the Ministry of Education is conducting a competitive scientific competition for all general education students to compete in design, programming and robot control.

The competition aims to spread robot culture among students and to link theoretical information with practical application, as well as rooting the idea of mass work and cooperative education among students from all categories.

The King Abdul Aziz University is participating through a corner on promoting the definition of talent, creativity and invention, and presenting real models of local and international award-winning students' innovations, as well as developing the skills of the visitors through interactive intelligence games.

The cultural garden initiatives offer a variety of activities related to the art of painting. The Ministry of Education offers an educational and recreational program that includes many activities such as free drawing, wood burning writing, water painting, etc., targeting all groups.

King Abdul Aziz University offers interactive activities for visitors and those interested in libraries and reading. These activities include the presentation of manuscripts and cultural books, participation in the recording of audio books, learning about the audio book program and teaching children how to make such books.



Blood Tests Allow 30-year Estimates of Women's Cardio Risks, New Study Says

A woman jogs in a park in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire near Nantes, France January 19, 2024. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A woman jogs in a park in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire near Nantes, France January 19, 2024. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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Blood Tests Allow 30-year Estimates of Women's Cardio Risks, New Study Says

A woman jogs in a park in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire near Nantes, France January 19, 2024. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A woman jogs in a park in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire near Nantes, France January 19, 2024. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

Women’s heart disease risks and their need to start taking preventive medications should be evaluated when they are in their 30s rather than well after menopause as is now the practice, said researchers who published a study on Saturday.

Presenting the findings at the European Society of Cardiology annual meeting in London, they said the study showed for the first time that simple blood tests make it possible to estimate a woman’s risk of cardiovascular disease over the next three decades.

"This is good for patients first and foremost, but it is also important information for (manufacturers of) cholesterol lowering drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs, and lipoprotein(a)lowering drugs - the implications for therapy are broad," said study leader Dr. Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Reuters reported.

Current guidelines “suggest to physicians that women should generally not be considered for preventive therapies until their 60s and 70s. These new data... clearly demonstrate that our guidelines need to change,” Ridker said. “We must move beyond discussions of 5 or 10 year risk."

The 27,939 participants in the long-term Women’s Health Initiative study had blood tests between 1992 and 1995 for low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C or “bad cholesterol”), which are already a part of routine care.

They also had tests for high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) - a marker of blood vessel inflammation - and lipoprotein(a), a genetically determined type of fat.

Compared to risks in women with the lowest levels of each marker, risks for major cardiovascular events like heart attacks or strokes over the next 30 years were 36% higher in women with the highest levels of LDL-C, 70% higher in women with the highest levels of hsCRP, and 33% higher in those with the highest levels of lipoprotein(a).

Women in whom all three markers were in the highest range were 2.6 times more likely to have a major cardiovascular event and 3.7 times more likely to have a stroke over the next three decades, according to a report of the study in The New England Journal of Medicine published to coincide with the presentation at the meeting.

“The three biomarkers are fully independent of each other and tell us about different biologic issues each individual woman faces,” Ridker said.

“The therapies we might use in response to an elevation in each biomarker are markedly different, and physicians can now specifically target the individual person’s biologic problem.”

While drugs that lower LDL-C and hsCRP are widely available - including statins and certain pills for high blood pressure and heart failure - drugs that reduce lipoprotein(a) levels are still in development by companies, including Novartis , Amgen , Eli Lilly and London-based Silence Therapeutics.

In some cases, lifestyle changes such as exercising and quitting smoking can be helpful.

Most of the women in the study were white Americans, but the findings would likely “have even greater impact among Black and Hispanic women for whom there is even a higher prevalence of undetected and untreated inflammation,” Ridker said.

“This is a global problem,” he added. “We need universal screening for hsCRP ... and for lipoprotein(a), just as we already have universal screening for cholesterol.”