Culture
Latest stories
SchoolTec exhibition kicks off at Mövenpick

Established in 2013, EDUCITY, the leading fair organizer, has launched SchoolTec, the first national exhibition for Educational Supplies and Solutions, which is taking place for the first time in Lebanon.

The opening ceremony took place on Wednesday January 18, 2023 in the presence of hundreds of educators. And the fair will continue on Thursday January 19, and on Friday January 20 from 3:00 until 9:00 p.m. in Mövenpick Hotel Beirut – Lebanon.

W140 Full Story
At Lunar New Year, desserts can be customary or 'cute-ified'

Every Lunar New Year without fail, Kat Lieu's mother would make her steamed nian gao, which is a sweet rice — or mochi — cake. It was a tasty tradition of having dessert for breakfast.

The Seattle-based author of the "Modern Asian Baking at Home" cookbook and founder of the Subtle Asian Baking online group switches things up for her 9-year-old son. He gets mochi waffles made with bright green pandan the first morning of the new year.

W140 Full Story
Mufti's talk of women's duties angers some Turkish Cypriots

A Muslim religious leader's instruction to women to dutifully accept a husband's "invitation to bed" to procreate has sparked outrage among many Turkish Cypriots, who saw the remarks as an imported encroachment of fundamentalist Islam on their secular community.

"We don't live in a theocratic regime. This is neither Afghanistan nor Iran, sir!" said Dogus Derya, a prominent female lawmaker with the left-wing CTP party in ethnically divided Cyprus' breakaway Turkish Cypriot north.

W140 Full Story
Museum seeks dismissal of lawsuit over van Gogh painting

A Detroit museum displaying a 1888 painting by Vincent van Gogh as part of a showing of 80 of his works said it shouldn't be pulled into a dispute over ownership of the multimillion-dollar artwork.

The Detroit Institute of Arts said federal law gives it immunity in a lawsuit by a Brazilian collector who claims to be the owner of the painting, titled "The Novel Reader." The museum responded in court Monday, less than a week before the rare U.S. exhibition ends.

W140 Full Story
Norway archeologists find 'world's oldest runestone'

Archeologists in Norway said Tuesday that have found a runestone which they claim is the world's oldest, saying the inscriptions are up to 2,000 years old and date back to the earliest days of the enigmatic history of runic writing.

The flat, square block of brownish sandstone has carved scribbles, which may be the earliest example of words recorded in writing in Scandinavia, the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo said. It said it was "among the oldest runic inscriptions ever found" and "the oldest datable runestone in the world."

W140 Full Story
Art professor sues after firing over Prophet Mohammed images

Attorneys for an adjunct art professor said Tuesday she is suing the Minnesota university that dismissed her after a Muslim student objected to depictions of the Prophet Mohammed in a global art course, while the university admitted to a "misstep" and plans to hold public conversations about academic freedom.

In her lawsuit, Erika López Prater alleges that Hamline University — a small, private school in St. Paul — subjected her to religious discrimination and defamation, and damaged her professional and personal reputation.

W140 Full Story
Childcare woes, costs and competition turn Chinese off parenting

Weary parents in China say the difficulties of juggling work and childcare in a costly and ultra-competitive society with little help from the state are at the root of the country's dwindling birth rate.

W140 Full Story
Armenian museum reopens in Jerusalem's Old City

A hundred years after taking in scores of children whose parents were killed in the Armenian genocide, a 19th-century orphanage in Jerusalem's Armenian Quarter has reopened its doors as a museum documenting the community's rich, if pained, history.

The Mardigian Museum showcases Armenian culture and tells of the community's centuries-long connection to the holy city. At the same time, it is a memorial to around 1.5 million Armenians killed by the Ottoman Turks around World War I, in what many scholars consider the 20th century's first genocide.

W140 Full Story
China records 1st population fall in decades as births drop

China has announced its first population decline in decades as what has been the world's most populous nation ages and its birthrate plunges.

The National Bureau of Statistics reported Tuesday that the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than the previous year. The tally includes only the population of mainland China, excluding Hong Kong and Macao as well as foreign residents.

W140 Full Story
Kabul's mannequins, hooded and masked under Taliban rules

Under the Taliban, the mannequins in women's dress shops across the Afghan capital of Kabul are a haunting sight, their heads cloaked in cloth sacks or wrapped in black plastic bags.

The hooded mannequins are one symbol of the Taliban's puritanical rule over Afghanistan. But in a way, they are also a small show of resistance and creativity by Kabul's dress merchants.

W140 Full Story