Saudi Culture Ministry Launches New Strategy For Non-Profit Sector

 Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan
Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan
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Saudi Culture Ministry Launches New Strategy For Non-Profit Sector

 Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan
Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan

Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan announced Monday the ministry’s new strategy for the nonprofit sector which aims to build a diverse system of nonprofit entities in various cultural sectors in all regions of the Kingdom.

Minister Prince Badr thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman for their continuous support for the nation’s culture and intellectuals, as well as for enhancing the opportunities for the nonprofit sector to contribute to the development of cultural fields.

“The objectives of the ministry’s strategy for the nonprofit sector are its inclusion, its effective contribution to the cultural and social systems, its building of wide communication at the local and international levels, the safety of its administrative efficiency, and its financial stability,” he said.

A total of 16 nonprofit professional societies will be created in 13 cultural sectors in the Kingdom.

The Ministry will implement its plan for the nonprofit sector by dividing nonprofit organizations into five categories such as civil institutions, professional societies, specialized societies, cooperative societies, and amateur clubs and that is consistent with the system of civil societies and institutions.

Prince Badr said that since the beginning of last year, the Ministry of Culture has worked on an analytical study of the nonprofit cultural sector in the Kingdom as well as in a number of other countries.

The study concluded the importance of re-classifying nonprofit cultural organizations in accordance with their roles to a broader than the two-fold classification established in the system of NGOs and civil institutions, and the importance of developing them in terms of their geographical distribution, measuring their social and economic impact, expanding their areas of competence in view of the cultural sectors.

Referring to the ministry’s support for these organizations, the minister has directed that public libraries, cultural centers, and literary clubs headquarters, and cultural and art associations will be made available to hold activities of the new organizations.

The ministry has also invited interested persons to apply to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development to establish their own civil institutions, and their civil and cooperative societies in the fields of literature, publishing, translation, libraries, heritage, museums, theater, and performing arts, music, films, fashion, cooking, architecture and design, and the visual arts.



Japan Startup Hopeful Ahead of Second Moon Launch

Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi soars through the air during the trial round of the Four Hills FIS Ski Jumping tournament (Vierschanzentournee), in Innsbruck, Austria on January 4, 2025. (Photo by GEORG HOCHMUTH / APA / AFP)
Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi soars through the air during the trial round of the Four Hills FIS Ski Jumping tournament (Vierschanzentournee), in Innsbruck, Austria on January 4, 2025. (Photo by GEORG HOCHMUTH / APA / AFP)
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Japan Startup Hopeful Ahead of Second Moon Launch

Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi soars through the air during the trial round of the Four Hills FIS Ski Jumping tournament (Vierschanzentournee), in Innsbruck, Austria on January 4, 2025. (Photo by GEORG HOCHMUTH / APA / AFP)
Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi soars through the air during the trial round of the Four Hills FIS Ski Jumping tournament (Vierschanzentournee), in Innsbruck, Austria on January 4, 2025. (Photo by GEORG HOCHMUTH / APA / AFP)

Japanese startup ispace vowed its upcoming second unmanned Moon mission will be a success, saying Thursday that it learned from its failed attempt nearly two years ago.

In April 2023, the firm's first spacecraft made an unsalvageable "hard landing", dashing its ambitions to be the first private company to touch down on the Moon.

The Houston-based Intuitive Machines accomplished that feat last year with an uncrewed craft that landed at the wrong angle but was able to complete tests and send photos.

With another mission scheduled to launch next week, ispace wants to win its place in space history at a booming time for missions to the Moon from both governments and private companies.

"We at ispace were disappointed in the failure of Mission 1," ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada told reporters.

"But that's why we hope to send a message to people across Japan that it's important to challenge ourselves again, after enduring the failure and learning from it."

"We will make this Mission 2 a success," AFP quoted him as saying.

Its new lander, called Resilience, will blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 15, along with another lunar lander built by US company Firefly Aerospace.

If Resilience lands successfully, it will deploy a micro rover and five other payloads from corporate partners.

These include an experiment by Takasago Thermal Engineering, which wants to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas with a view to using hydrogen as satellite and spacecraft fuel.

- Rideshare -

Firefly's Blue Ghost lander will arrive at the Moon after travelling 45 days, followed by ispace's Resilience, which the Japanese company hopes will land on the Earth's satellite at the end of May, or in June.

For the program, officially named Hakuto-R Mission 2, ispace chose to cut down on costs by arranging the first private-sector rocket rideshare, Hakamada said.

Only five nations have soft-landed spacecraft on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and, most recently, Japan.

Many companies are vying to offer cheaper and more frequent space exploration opportunities than governments.

Space One, another Japanese startup, is trying to become Japan's first company to put a satellite into orbit -- with some difficulty so far.

Last month, Space One's solid-fuel Kairos rocket blasted off from a private launchpad in western Japan but was later seen spiraling downwards in the distance.

That was the second launch attempt by Space One after an initial try in March last year ended in a mid-air explosion.

Meanwhile Toyota, the world's top-selling carmaker, announced this week it would invest seven billion yen ($44 million) in Japanese rocket startup Interstellar Technologies.

"The global demand for small satellite launches has surged nearly 20-fold, from 141 launches in 2016 to 2,860 in 2023," driven by private space businesses, national security concerns and technological development, Interstellar said.