Libya's Benghazi Hosts Rare 'Week of Culture'

A Libyan musician plays during a cultural week in the eastern city of Benghazi on June 14, 2021 - AFP
A Libyan musician plays during a cultural week in the eastern city of Benghazi on June 14, 2021 - AFP
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Libya's Benghazi Hosts Rare 'Week of Culture'

A Libyan musician plays during a cultural week in the eastern city of Benghazi on June 14, 2021 - AFP
A Libyan musician plays during a cultural week in the eastern city of Benghazi on June 14, 2021 - AFP

Libya's eastern city of Benghazi is hosting a rare "week of culture" featuring art, music and theater, as the country attempts to turn the page on a decade of violence.

"It's an honor to have an exhibition for the first time in Benghazi," said Elham el-Ferjani, an artist who traveled from the capital Tripoli in the country's west specially for the event.

Benghazi was the first city to rise up against longtime dictator Moamer Gaddafi in 2011 in a NATO-backed revolt.

The situation deteriorated into a complex war involving Libyan armed groups, foreign mercenaries and foreign powers, and an ensuing political crisis saw the oil-rich country split in recent years between rival authorities in the east and west.

An October truce set in motion a UN-sponsored process that led to the creation of an interim government tasked with preparing the country for elections this December and unifying its institutions.

Ferjani, whose work is inspired by Libyan desert rock art, Amazigh (Berber) culture and the North African country's decade of conflict, is displaying her paintings at the Barah cultural centre in the heart of Libya's ancient second city.

The opportunity to meet with artists who have traveled from all over the country was "a source of joy", said Ferjani, whose show kicked off the week's events, AFP reported.

Other activities include workshops on glass painting, photography and sculpture, as well as roundtables and conferences, said organizer Hazem el-Ferjani, who is not related to the artist.

The aim of the cultural week, which runs until Saturday, was "to revive the artistic and cultural life of Benghazi", a city long associated with violence, he said.

The program also features debates on Libyan cinema, a concert of Arab-Andalusian music and a play performed by a Libyan theater troop.



Cologne Starts Its Biggest Evacuation Since 1945 To Defuse WWII Bombs 

One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
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Cologne Starts Its Biggest Evacuation Since 1945 To Defuse WWII Bombs 

One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)
One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off with screens as specialists prepare to defuse them in Cologne, Tuesday, June 3, 2025. (Thomas Banneyer/dpa via AP)

More than 20,000 residents were being evacuated from part of Cologne's city center on Wednesday as specialists prepared to defuse three unexploded US bombs from World War II that were unearthed earlier this week.

Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany.

Disposing of them sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the one on Wednesday, though the location this time was unusually prominent and this is Cologne's biggest evacuation since 1945. There have been bigger evacuations in other cities.

Authorities on Wednesday morning started evacuating about 20,500 residents from an area within a 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) radius of the bombs, which were discovered on Monday during preparatory work for road construction. They were found in the Deutz district, just across the Rhine River from Cologne's historic center.

As well as homes, the area includes 58 hotels, nine schools, several museums and office buildings and the Messe/Deutz train station.

It also includes three bridges across the Rhine, among them the heavily used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne's central station and is being shut during the defusal work itself.

Shipping on the Rhine will also be suspended.

The plan is for the bombs to be defused during the course of the day. When exactly that happens depends on how long it takes for authorities to be sure that everyone is out of the evacuation zone.