Saudi Culture Minister, Mexican Ambassador Discuss Cultural Cooperation

Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan. Asharq Al-Awsat
Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan. Asharq Al-Awsat
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Saudi Culture Minister, Mexican Ambassador Discuss Cultural Cooperation

Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan. Asharq Al-Awsat
Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan. Asharq Al-Awsat

Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan met on Thursday with the Mexican Ambassador to the Kingdom, Anibal Gomez Toledo, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Prince Badr is also Chairman of the National Committee for Education, Science and Culture.

During the meeting, the minister and the diplomat discussed prospects for cultural cooperation between the two countries, and ways to enhance it in several fields such as filmmaking, theater, visual arts, culinary arts, and libraries, SPA said.

Prince Badr noted that Mexico hosted the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development (Mondiacult).

For his part, the Mexican ambassador stressed the depth of Saudi-Mexican relations, praising the Kingdom's efforts internationally to promote culture as a global necessity to spread dialogue and build bridges of communication between peoples, the news agency added.



Taipei Zoo's Veteran Giant Panda Celebrates 20th Birthday

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
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Taipei Zoo's Veteran Giant Panda Celebrates 20th Birthday

Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
Panda Yuanyuan enjoys her birthday cake for her 20th birthday at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

With politics set aside, well-wishers gathered to wish the Taipei zoo’s senior panda a happy 20th birthday.
Visitors crowded around Yuanyuan's enclosure to take photos of her with a birthday cake in the shape of the number 20.
Yuanyuan was born in China and arrived in 2008 with her partner Tuantuan. He died in 2022 at age 18 but not before fathering two female cubs, Yuanzai and Yuanbao, now 11 and 4 respectively and still living at the zoo.
Danielle Shu, a 20-year-old Brazilian student in Taiwan, said she found online clips of the pandas an enjoyable distraction. “And I just find it really funny and cute,” The Associated Press quoted Shu as saying.
Giant pandas are native only to China, and Beijing bestows them as a sign of political amity. Yuanyuan and Tuantuan arrived in Taiwan during a period of relative calm between the sides, which split amid civil war in 1949. China claims the island its own territory, to be annexed by military force if necessary.
Faced with declining habitat and a notoriously low birthrate, giant panda populations have declined to around 1,900 in the mountains of western China, while 600 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers in China and around the world.