LONDON: The Louvre Abu Dhabi will finally open to the public on Nov. 11, over a decade after the project was launched, Francoise Nyssen, France’s culture minister, has announced.
The gallery, part of the Saadiyat Cultural District in the UAE capital, is the first establishment outside the original Louvre in Paris, home to the world’s largest art collection, to carry the famous name.
Nyssen said the opening, expected to be attended by French President Emmanuel Macron, will demonstrate that the West and the Arab world are united in the face of terror attacks and intolerance around the globe.
“At a time when culture is under attack this is our joint response. It is civilization responding to barbarity,” he said.
The museum aims to attract people from neighboring Arab countries and around the world, according to Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan, the UAE culture minister.
“Just as the Louvre is the crown jewel of Paris, so the Louvre Abu Dhabi is destined for such a distinction,” he said.
While the excitement was palpable, there was also undoubtedly a huge sense of relief. The project has been beset by problems over funding, construction and workers’ rights, and was originally scheduled to open in 2012.
On top of that, from the start there have been frequent criticisms of the 30-year partnership between France and the UAE, worth $1.1 billion, which will see many top French museums loan art to Abu Dhabi. Some have accused the Louvre of “selling its soul.”
However, museum Director Manuel Rabate said that once open, Louvre Abu Dhabi will prove to be a brilliant example of cultural exchange.
“It’s exceptional… This is the first time a project of this kind has been launched in the Middle East. But that’s what’s so unique about this project,” Rabate said in response to the critics.
The waterfront gallery will display pieces from pre-history to the contemporary era. Besides Middle Eastern artefacts and paintings, it will include works by artists such as Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso and Cy Twombly.
“You have nude statues in the museum, contemporary paintings. You also have religious images from all religions,” Jean-Francois Charnier, scientific director of Agence France-Museums, revealed.
Major pieces include an Egyptian funeral set from the 10th century BC, a 15th century depiction of the Madonna and child by Giovanni Bellini and an 1878 Turkish painting titled “A Young Emir Studying” by Osama Hamdy Bey.
They will be housed in a series of white buildings topped by a cross-hatched steel dome, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, to let in shafts of light.
Mohamed Khalifa Al-Mubarak, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, tried to allay worries about the transportation of the art and the conditions in which it will be stored, in a country where temperatures soar well above 40 degrees Celsius in the summer.
“Their protection is vital to us and we have made sure we have the systems in place to protect them against the environmental conditions,” Al-Mubarak said.
Guarded by Emirati forces, in coordination with French experts, including civil defense and terrorism security forces, the exhibits are protected by “state of the art security systems and procedures, in line with international standards,” Al-Mubarak added.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi is part of the the UAE capital’s drive to promote the city as a cultural hub of the Middle East, and as a patron of the arts in a region increasingly focused on soft power.
About 5 percent of the overall museum will be dedicated to contemporary and modern art. The rest will focus on telling the story of world history and religions.
In the gallery of world religions, a sixth century Qur’an, a gothic Bible and a Yemeni Torah face each other, open at verses that give similar accounts.
“To send that message of tolerance is really important for our time,” Al-Mubarak said.
The gallery forms just part of the city’s cultural drive. Branches of the Guggenheim and the Zayed Museum, the national museum named after the country’s founder, are both under construction on the same island.
The hope is that the combination of world-class art and cultural tolerance will make a statement about the UAE’s values.
“We’re definitely not this closed-off society that’s putting a massive wall up,” said Mubarak.
“We (the UAE and France) have exactly the same goal: we both want to tell the world how our history is connected.
“Through culture the world can become a better place.”
Louvre Abu Dhabi to open in November as cultural district takes shape
Louvre Abu Dhabi to open in November as cultural district takes shape
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235
GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 44,235 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,638 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog
- The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry
THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday that it was “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile, as large quantities of potentially banned warfare agents might be involved.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shortly after an alleged chemical gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
“Despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed,” the watchdog’s director-general Fernando Arias told delegates at the OPCW’s annual meeting.
The Hague-based global watchdog has previously accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of continued attacks on civilians with chemical weapons during the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war.
“Since 2014, the (OPCW) Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled,” in relation to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria, Arias said.
“The substance of the remaining 19 outstanding issues is of serious concern as it involves large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” he told delegates.
Syria’s OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, an unprecedented rebuke, following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.
Last year the watchdog blamed Syria for a 2018 chlorine attack that killed 43 people, in a long-awaited report on a case that sparked tensions between Damascus and the West.
Damascus has denied the allegations and insisted it has handed over its stockpiles.
Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.
Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon
- The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries
DAMASUS: Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defense ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the bridges of Al-Jubaniyeh, Al-Daf, Arjoun, and the Al-Nizariyeh Gate in the Qusayr area,” state television said, with official news agency SANA reporting damage in the attacks.
The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries.
The attacks “injured two civilians and caused material losses,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said the attacks had “killed two Syrians working with Hezbollah and injured five others,” giving a preliminary toll.
Earlier, the monitor with a network of sources in Syria had said the “Israeli strikes targeted” an official land border crossing in the Qusayr area and six bridges on the Orontes River near the border with Lebanon.
Since September, Israel has bombed land crossings between Lebanon and Syria, putting them out of service. It accuses Hezbollah of using the routes, key for people fleeing the war in Lebanon, to transfer weapons from Syria.
Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case
- A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said
BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced to prison former senior officials, a businessman and others for involvement in the theft of $2.5 billion in public funds — one of Iraq’s biggest corruption cases.
The three most high-profile individuals sentenced — businessman Nour Zuhair, as well as former prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi and a former adviser, Haitham Al-Juburi — are on the run and were tried in absentia.
The scandal, dubbed the “heist of the century,” has sparked widespread anger in Iraq, which is ravaged by rampant corruption, unemployment and decaying infrastructure after decades of conflict.
A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said.
Thirteen people received sentences on Monday, according to member of Parliament Mostafa Sanad.
Most of them, 10, are from Iraq’s tax authority and include its former director and deputy, he added on his Telegram channel.
Iraq revealed two years ago that at least $2.5 billion was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022 through 247 cheques that were cashed by five companies.
The money was then withdrawn in cash from the accounts of those firms.
A judicial source told AFP that some tax officials charged were in detention, without detailing how many.
Businessman Zuhair was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the judiciary statement.
He was arrested at Baghdad airport in October 2022 as he was trying to leave the country, but released on bail a month later after giving back more than $125 million and pledging to return the rest in instalments.
The wealthy businessman was back in the news in August after he reportedly had a car crash in Lebanon, following an interview he gave to an Iraqi news channel.
Juburi, the former prime ministerial adviser, received a three-year prison sentence. He also returned $2.6 million before disappearing, a judicial source told AFP.
Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi, also currently outside Iraq, was sentenced to six years in prison — alongside “a number of officials involved in the crime,” according to the judiciary’s statement.
Corruption is rampant across Iraq’s public institutions, but convictions typically target mid-level officials or minor players and rarely those at the top of the power hierarchy.
11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor
- Seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in the attack and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that control swathes of northeast Syria.
BEIRUT: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Monday 11 people including civilians were killed in attacks by a Kurdish-led force on positions of Turkiye-backed militants in north Syria.
“A woman, her two children and a man were killed... in the bombing of a military position... used by Ankara-backed factions for human smuggling operations to Turkiye,” the Britain-based monitor said.
It said seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in that incident and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control swathes of northeast Syria.
SDF special forces infiltrated a Turkiye-backed group’s military position and killed three militants, said the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
The SDF also booby-trapped a military position as they withdrew, in an attack that killed another four pro-Turkiye militants but also four civilians including a woman and her two children, the Observatory said.
On Sunday, 15 Ankara-backed Syrian militants were killed after the SDF infiltrated their territory, the monitor reported earlier.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkish troops and allied armed factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.
