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King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Festival to Kick Off in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qurayyat

The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Development Authority logo
The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Development Authority logo
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King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Festival to Kick Off in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qurayyat

The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Development Authority logo
The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Development Authority logo

The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Festival, organized by the Reserve Development Authority, will take place from April 14 to 18 at the Cultural Center in Al-Qurayyat Governorate.

The festival aims to showcase tourist and recreational sites within the reserve and encourage local community involvement in reserve activities.

The festival offers a variety of events that will take visitors on a fun journey through recreational, cultural, artistic, and awareness activities. These include a children's area with games and drawing, an afforestation and planting area to promote afforestation culture and vegetation development, an artisan's market that celebrates Saudi heritage and traditional crafts, a wildlife area, and a performing arts theater.

The theater will present cultural shows and segments highlighting heritage, history, poetry evenings, theatrical performances, and folk arts.

The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve is the largest wildlife reserve in the Middle East, spanning over 130,000 square kilometers. It has archaeological sites registered with the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

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Japan’s Sado Mines Added to World Heritage List

This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)
This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)
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Japan’s Sado Mines Added to World Heritage List

This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)
This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)

A network of mines on a Japanese island infamous for using conscripted wartime labor was added to UNESCO's World Heritage register Saturday after South Korea dropped earlier objections to its listing.

The Sado gold and silver mines, now a popular tourist attraction, are believed to have started operating as early as the 12th century and produced until after World War II.

Japan had put a case for World Heritage listing because of their lengthy history and the artisanal mining techniques used there at a time when European mines had turned to mechanization.

The proposal was opposed by Seoul when it was first put because of the use of involuntary Korean labor during World War II, when Japan occupied the Korean peninsula.

UNESCO confirmed the listing of the mines at its ongoing committee meeting in New Delhi on Saturday after a bid highlighting its archaeological preservation of "mining activities and social and labor organization".

"I would like to wholeheartedly welcome the inscription... and pay sincere tribute to the long-standing efforts of the local people which made this possible," Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said in a statement.

The World Heritage effort was years in the making, inspired in part by the successful recognition of a silver mine in western Japan's Shimane region.

South Korea's foreign ministry said it had agreed to the listing "on the condition that Japan faithfully implements the recommendation... to reflect the 'full history' at the Sado Gold Mine site and takes proactive measures to that end."

Historians have argued that recruitment conditions at the mine effectively amounted to forced labor, and that Korean workers faced significantly harsher conditions than their Japanese counterparts.

"Discrimination did exist," Toyomi Asano, a professor of history of Japanese politics at Tokyo's Waseda University, told AFP in 2022.

"Their working conditions were very bad and dangerous. The most dangerous jobs were allocated to them."

Also added to the list on Saturday was the Beijing Central Axis, a collection of former imperial palaces and gardens in the Chinese capital.

The UNESCO committee meeting runs until Wednesday.