20 Projects to Boost Saudi Arabia’s Cultural Creative Scene

CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel, (Asharq Al-Awsat)
CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel, (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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20 Projects to Boost Saudi Arabia’s Cultural Creative Scene

CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel, (Asharq Al-Awsat)
CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel, (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Saudi Arabia’s cultural and creative scene is bracing for 20 new projects and initiatives widening its horizons. The Cultural Development Fund had approved the host of initiatives as the first qualified package of projects for launching a new cultural era in the Kingdom.

The Cultural Development Fund’s approval was coupled with it providing SAR76 million to support said projects.

This comes as part of the Fund’s endeavors to enrich the cultural activity in the Kingdom.

Supporting the pioneers of the cultural sector and enabling them to start their businesses and expand their existing initiatives will most definitely enhance the cultural scene in the Kingdom, empower national competencies, and provide an opportunity for more quality and creativity.

CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel considered that supporting the first package of cultural projects is one step to be followed by many other steps.

He said that more programs and plans to stimulate the Kingdom’s cultural sector will be announced in the coming period.

For his part, the head of the business sector at the Fund, Majid bin Abdullah Al-Manea, confirmed that the new projects are the first announced batch to receive support from among the group of advanced projects in the first cycle of the program.

He said the projects were selected after meeting all of the Fund’s requirements.

They were chosen for their social, economic, and cultural impact.

According to Al-Manea, all projects will remain subject to performance follow-up mechanisms to ensure the quality of their outputs.

The Fund's establishment came to develop the cultural sector and achieve sustainability by supporting cultural activities and projects, facilitating cultural investment, and enhancing the sector's profitability.

Additionally, enabling those interested in engaging in cultural activities to have an active role in achieving the National Culture Strategy's goals and the Kingdom's Vision 2030.



China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
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China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS

Two Chinese astronauts this week completed a world-record spacewalk of more than nine hours, according to a statement from China's Manned Space Agency, marking another milestone for Beijing's rapidly expanding space program.

The spacewalk, carried out by Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong outside the Tiangong space station in low-Earth orbit on Tuesday, was at least four minutes longer than the last record set by NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms in 2001, according to Reuters.

The two astronauts of China's Shenzhou-19 mission donned their Feitian spacesuits to carry out an array of tasks on the station's exterior, including the installation of space-debris protection devices, China's space agency said.

"They successfully completed all the planned tasks and felt very excited about it," Wu Hao, a staffer from the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, told China Central Television, a state broadcaster.

The former Soviet Union in 1965 became the first nation to carry out a spacewalk. Since then, Russia and the United States have conducted hundreds of such missions, primarily outside the International Space Station for tasks ranging from solar panel installations to materials research.

The first spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut occurred in 2008.

China's spacewalking milestone this week comes amid a flurry of other recent cosmic achievements that have boosted Beijing's competitive footing with the United States.

China landed its first rover on Mars in 2021 and earlier this year became the first country to retrieve rock samples from the moon's treacherous far side in its Chang'e-6 mission.

Beijing is targeting 2030 to land its first astronauts on the moon to become the second country after the US to put humans there. Beijing has courted roughly a dozen countries for its International Lunar Research Station program, an effort to build a moon base on the moon's south pole.

That program rivals NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return US astronauts to the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission of 1972.