Art and Culture

BDS:  After performing in Tel Aviv, in defiance of Palestinian appeals not to help Israel use his name to cover up its regime of oppression, Caetano Veloso has now concluded that he will “never go back” to Israel. In an article entitled, “To visit Israel to never go back to Israel”, published on November 8, the prominent Brazilian artist reveals …

Lately Walmart dropped two costumes from its Halloween collection after they  had caused  controversy on social media. The two  controversial costumes are an IDF soldier and a “Sheikh Fagin nose”, a latex nose which was described in the website  as the  “perfect for an Arab Sheikh”. The “Sheikh Fagin nose,”  is a reference to the Jewish antagonist in Oliver Twist, was denounced …

An Egyptian court sentenced two female dancers to six months in jail each for “inciting debauchery,” in the second verdict of its kind since June. The dancers who got Arrested in July, known as Bardis and Shakira, were also convicted of “broadcasting obscenities” for appearing in two video clips wearing flimsy clothes and making “suggestive” moves. In June a court …

prominent Sunni Muslim scholars are demanding that Tehran  should ban a film on the life of the Prophet Muhammad that was released on August 27, though it breaks box-office records in Shi’ite Muslim Iran. Iran’s most expensive movie, which opened nationwide in the Shiite Islamic republic last week, depicts the prophet on screen, an act that is prohibited in Sunni …

On Tuesday  ,Muslim leaders and scholars from 20 countries issued a joint declaration underlining the severity of the problem  of Climate change and urging governments to commit to 100 percent renewable energy or a zero emissions strategy. The declaration calls on oil-rich, wealthy Muslim countries to lead the charge in phasing out fossil fuels “no later than the middle of …

Alzain Tareq, the 10-year-old swimmer was the world championships’ youngest competitor in Kazan swam her personal best to finish third in her 50m freestyle heat. The Bahraini girl had caused a splash at the Kazan pool on Friday morning when she raced in the women’s 50m butterfly heats and finished last of the event’s 64 competitors. She is believed to …

French customs officials have seized a  Pablo Picasso painting “Head of a Young Woman,” which  worth  about  25 million Euros ($27.4 million)  from a boat in the Corsican port of Calvi in France . There were concerns that it might be permanently removed from Spain in defiance of an export ban. Officers boarded the vessel after French authorities in Corsica received a request  for authorization to export the painting to …

  Japanese manga girl “ISIS-chan” is appearing all over social media, and she has a mission  to stop ISIS (Islamic state group), and to gather as many melons as she can. ISIS-chan wears the terrorist group’s black clothing. She has green eyes and dark hair. She’s 19. And if she’s holding a knife, it’s only because she loves to slice …

This week, a forgotten Irma Stern painting has been unexpectedly found in a London apartment. Hannah O’Leary, a Bonhams expert who specializes in South African art, reportedly recognized Stern’s 1939 painting, titled Arab in Black, during an appraisal visit. “I spotted this masterpiece hanging in the kitchen covered in letters, postcards and bills,” she said. According to reports, the current owner inherited the piece from his parents, …

on Wednesday ,researchers said  that they found in a British university library Fragments of a Koran manuscript which considered  the world’s oldest surviving copies of the Islamic text. The Radiocarbon dating indicated that the parchment folios held by the University of Birmingham in central England were at least 1,370 years old, and that  make them the oldest written forms of” …