Egypt’s museums will open their doors free-of-charge to Egyptian, Arab and foreign visitors on Thursday, May 18 as part of the Antiquities Ministry’s celebrations for International Museums Day. Elham Salah, head of the Ministry’s museums sector, said in remarks that the decision is a tradition adopted by the ministry to encourage people to visit the museums and raise archaeological awareness.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a behemoth of culture and wealth, is rebounding from more than a year of internal turmoil and financial problems. As part of its recovery efforts, the museum is considering a mandatory admissions fee for visitors from outside New York state. The set fee, possibly $25 for adults, would be the first in the venerable museum’s 147-year history.

There is an ancient statue that resembles King Ramses II and has the body of a giant lion attacking a human who represents the enemy trying to cross Egypt’s borders. Another statue shows the king strongly holding his sceptre. These are some of the displayed relics at the commemoration exhibition of Sheikh Ibrahim Burkhardt, the man who discovered Abu Simbel Temples. The halls of the Egyptian museum witnessed the opening of its latest exhibitions “Abu Simbel: 200 years after Sheikh Ibrahim Burkhardt” on Sunday night under the attendance of Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Anany, Swiss ambassador to Egypt Mark

Thousands of years after their era has come to end, Pharaohs’ legacy still embraces people’s minds with new discoveries. The Ministry of Antiquities announced discovering a cemetery that dates back to the Late Period, with 17 mummies buried in Al-Minya, Upper Egypt.

At the height of World War II, thousands of German and Austrian nationals in the UK were rounded up and sent to internment camps. But at one camp, art helped internees maintain hope and express their refugee experience.When Paul Humpoletz was born on June 21, 1940 in London, his father was sitting behind barbed wire some 286 miles (about 460 kilometers) away on the Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish Sea.

Egypt has unearthed an ancient burial site replete with at least 17 mummies, most fully intact, the latest in a string of discoveries that the country's antiquities minister described as a helping hand from the crypt for its struggling tourism sector.

There are an increasing number of places around the world where it’s legal to smoke it, vape it, and eat it in a cookie, but have you ever considered using cannabis-derived beauty products?

Robert De Niro pulled a Meryl Streep at Monday night's Chaplin Award Gala in New York. While accepting a career achievement award, the actor criticized budget proposals from President Donald Trump that would entirely eliminate funding for several agencies, including those that support arts and public broadcasting.

Director of the Giza Pyramids area Ashraf Mohey Eddin denied the news reported by the BBC about a Saudi Emir who rented the entire pyramids archaeological area to propose to his girlfriend. Mohey Eddin described the news as "illogical".

Twenty-two drama series have been approved by the Censorship of Artistic Works to be screened on TV in the holy month of Ramadan, which starts by the end of May. Among these series were; al-Husan al-Aswad with actor Ahmed al-Saqqa; al-Gamaa (part II) written by Waheed Hamed, al-Zeybaq with actors Kareem Abdel Aziz and Sherif Mounir, Allahumma inny Sayem with actor Mostafa Shaaban, as well as other series with controversial promos like Rayyah el-madam, Be’aala Se’r and Harbana menha.

Egyptian swimmer Omar Hegazy, 26, recently became the first Egyptian to cross the 20 kilometers from Jordan’s al-Aqaba to Egypt’s Taba, challenging his own limits after having lost his leg in a tragic accident three years earlier. Since this accident, Omar has been keen to continue all his favorite sports -- swimming, diving and even mountain climbing -- to “prove to the entire world that people can always choose to be greater than they ever thought they can be.”

A record number of tourist visitors in 2016 was not enough, but it did certainly do the country good. As the 2017 tourist season starts, the industry is banking on an even better year.The tourist season in the old harbour of Skopelos island off Greece’s eastern coast is starting, as it often does, in a leisurely fashion. Visitors can choose a taverna and then take their pick of the free seats in the sun to watch fishing boats rock gently on the water and be served their tzatziki by smiling waiters. The same scene will look very different in just a few weeks’ time, when the tidal wave of tourists arrives, the restaurants fill up and the staff have to rush from one impatient table to the next. The more, the better, say the people offering rooms, drinks, food, massages, trinkets, three-week tattoos and a myriad of other goods and services. They hope for the crowds and the tourist dollars they bring as a antidote to the financial crisis and years of austerity budgets from the government. They know it will take more than just one excellent year to be get back on track. After setting the new record of 27.5 million guests in 2016, Greece this year expects up to 30 million visitors. “We’ll see. Siga, siga (take it easy),” Rigas Gripiotis says. He does not want to jinx it, but the grin on the young cook’s face betrays optimism. “Skopelos is not Mykonos or Santorini, where there is always a lot going on,” he says, explaining his reservations. But many tourists prefer the quieter surroundings of the Sporades islands, and Rigas and his three brothers admit to hoping for a super summer after investing in a facelift for their waterfront taverna.

The Holzmarkt in Berlin was once the home of a legendary club: Bar 25. Now, the former owners opened a chic village in the same spot. But instead of a hippy utopia, it’s all about business, says columnist Gero Schliess.It started with a board and a nail. Then came another board and nail. Finally, Bar 25 was ready. “It was a small wooden hut with slightly quiet music,” recalls a woman who was there at the time. Soon, the eclectic hut was a legendary house club and the epitome of Berlin’s bohemian culture. As if built from a dream, it seemed to stand for a freer life, one without concerns for building inspection officers or fire safety measures.

In a world were infections are on the rise, a simple behaviour like regularly hand washing can reduce incidence of infection in hospitals by a whopping 50%, saving the lives of 8 million each year, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO). Each year, 5 May is celebrated worldwide by WHO as Hand Hygiene Day. On this occasion the United Nations Information Centre in Cairo, in cooperation with WHO, held a media briefing to shed light on a campaign titled Wash Hands, Save Lives.

There’s no doubt that the glory of Cairo’s downtown buildings makes the area one of the most mesmerising spots in Egypt. Despite being worn by time, the buildings, which were built in the Khedive Ismail era, were and still are a signifying proof of how architecture resembles a city’s beauty, elegance, and modesty. Celebrating the 150th anniversary of establishing Khedive Cairo, the National Committee for the Protection and Renovation of Cairo’s Heritage decided to start the second phase of restoring downtown buildings. The committee, under the direct supervision of Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, started the second phase by renovating the “Khedive building”, one of the main structures near Tahrir Square. The building is one of the first constructed buildings of 19th century Khedival Cairo. For over 100 years, it has had a reputation of one of the most visitable streets downtown.

India, a land with a wealth of culture, history, tradition, beliefs and arts, is a vivid cornucopia of stories and knowledge. Its polychromatic character — whether obvious as literal colours or concealed in the abundance of thought — invites a viewer to absorb the country as a journey forged of many individual experiences.

"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," the smash-hit, award-winning London play about the fictional boy wizard as a grown father of three, will open in New York in spring 2018.

Weddings are a life-long dream for many people around the country. The long-anticipated night includes an endless number of details and necessities that future brides and grooms spend months looking for. After a very successful season last year, Cairo Wedding Festival (CWF) came back for a second season last weekend at Uptown Cairo. From gowns to jewelry, flowers, invitation cards, photographers, and even dentists, the event’s long list of exhibitors did not leave any wedding-related detail out.

Egypt has laid out its vision to become a regional energy hub following discoveries of large offshore gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean. This vision is critical as the energy sector remains the major driver of the country’s balance of payments. Recent developments suggest that Egypt has a clear potential to become a trading and exporting hub, notably for natural gas. However, the realisation of this ambition will depend on the country’s capacity to mitigate geopolitical, financial, and regulatory risks. This should go hand-in-hand with energy diversification to reduce dependence on gas and sustain anticipated exports. In a study issued on Tuesday, BNP Paribas bank tried to answer the question “can Egypt become a net gas exporter again?”

Enter a pitch-black Hanager Theatre, and there on the stage is a cast of seven puppeteers and actors, each flitting between roles, all flitting on and off stage. Their movements are fluid and expansive, deftly utilising the entire space of the stage. We are at the Images of Truth, a performance by Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust staged at Hanager Theatre in Cairo on 27 April. The show is the closing event of the fifth India by the Nile festival, which lasted for seven weeks.

Hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers are again flying to Malta. With record numbers of tourists, the economy is booming. That means a huge amount of building on the island. Some people are appalled.Jackhammers, cement mixers and diggers drown out the sound of the sea. Housing blocks and skyscrapers rise into the blue skies. For a southern European country, Malta can tell an unusually successful success story at present. The economy is booming and every nook and cranny of the island mini-nation in the Mediterranean is being built up. “Malta is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe,” writes the International Monetary Fund in a report. According to EU estimates, the economy is set to grow by 3.7 percent this year. In comparison, the statisticians expect growth of 1.6 percent for the entire EU.