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Bahrain to Host 9th Edition of World Forum on Gastronomy Tourism

The selection of Bahrain has been based on the country’s unique tourism and entertainment features. BNA
The selection of Bahrain has been based on the country’s unique tourism and entertainment features. BNA
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Bahrain to Host 9th Edition of World Forum on Gastronomy Tourism

The selection of Bahrain has been based on the country’s unique tourism and entertainment features. BNA
The selection of Bahrain has been based on the country’s unique tourism and entertainment features. BNA

The UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) announced that it has chosen Bahrain to host the 9th edition of the World Forum on Gastronomy Tourism 2024, the largest international event in the sector.

The selection of Bahrain has been based on the country’s unique tourism and entertainment features, being one of the best destinations of arts and gastronomy in the Middle East.

The announcement was made on the sidelines of the 8th World Forum on Gastronomy Tourism, held in San Sebastian, Spain, on October 5-7. The annual event aims at encouraging expertise exchange among tourism and gastronomy experts, and increasing awareness about the food culture and heritage and its role in promoting tourism.

The Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) plans to organize the forum at the Exhibition World Bahrain, Sakhir, one of the largest event venues in the region.

The international recognition emphasizes the position of Bahrain as one of the world’s best culinary destination for food lovers and gastronomy explorers, in line with the country’s tourism strategy 2022-2026 aimed at presenting the kingdom as a tourism pioneer in the region and the world.

“We are very happy to bring the forum to the Middle East for the first time. As this region lives rapid development in tourism, we are thrilled to showcase Bahrain’s rich heritage and the unique sharing spirit embedded in its gastronomy – a driver of tourism development,” UNWTO Secretary General Zurab Pololikashvili was quoted as saying by the Bahrain News Agency (BNA).

“Bahrain is proud to have such a varied combination of culinary tastes that reflect its rich legacy and its appealing spotlight for gastronomists and culinary tourists. The forum will serve as an ideal platform to offer the best innovative solutions to elevate gastronomy tourism, highlighting the kingdom’s outstanding gourmet and culinary experience based on its rich legacy, intersection of civilizations and cultures, local cuisine diversity, and fame for diverse tastes. The forum will positively support tourism product diversity and increase inbound tourism influx,” said BTEA chief executive Dr. Nasser Qaedi.

The upcoming forum in Bahrain will greatly contribute to promoting the growth of tourism, and the sectors, companies and national cadres supporting it, in a way that enhances the Kingdom’s regional position as a promising destination for gastronomy tourism, while establishing more partnerships among stakeholders in the sector to ensure the success of the forum, promote gastronomy tourism and the overall contribution of tourism to the national economy.

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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
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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.