Art & Culture | WPN World People News

International guests joyfully interacted with the Tai Ji Men lions and picked the draw of wisdom words to get a full year of joy and energy.

Aarhus in Denmark and Pafos in Cyprus are Europe's cultural capitals for this year. Since the capitals of culture initiative was launched in 1985, 54 cities around Europe have had the honour. The aim is to highlight the richness of Europe’s cultural diversity and looks at its shared history and heritage. Read more about this year’s cultural capitals.

A statue of a lamassu, an Assyrian protective deity, at the North West Palace of Ashurnasirpal in Nimrud, Iraq.

The 12th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage will take place from 4 December to 8 December 2017 in Seoul (Republic of Korea) and will be chaired by Ambassador Lee Byong-hyun, Permanent Delegate of the Republic of Korea to UNESCO.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Tai Ji Men Qigong Academy, Tai Ji Men shifu and dizi travel around the world this year conducting cultural exchange programs to spread the message of love and peace in Asia, Europe and America. In mid-November, they participated in the 17th International Conference of Chief Justices of the World in India and shared the declarations of An Era of Conscience, taxpayer’s human rights and world citizenship with chief justices and judges from 56 nations. The sharing has received widespread feedbacks. Immediately after the trip to India, the group of 20 people visited Nepal on November 17 at the invitation of Mrs. Sita Devi Yadav, Minister of Peace and Reconstruction. The message of love and peace was warmly welcomed by the local Nepal people. The group has visited more than 200 cities in 67 nations around the world.

Sculpture "The Thinker" by Auguste Rodin. World Philosophy Day takes place every November.

On November 7, Mālama Mākua, represented by Earthjustice, took the U.S. Army back to court for violating cultural access rights to sacred sites at Mākua Military Reservation on Oʻahu. The reservation contains 100 sites eligible for listing on the national historic register, including Hawaiian temples, shrines, petroglyphs and other historical and cultural sites.

In the last twenty years the UK and China have witnessed extraordinary growth in their creative industries, partly fuelled by the digital revolution. High-quality research is increasingly being recognised as a core ingredient to help support and sustain the future development of the new small businesses and start-up’s at the heart of this sector.

Britain’s aspiring musicians are set to benefit from a £2.8 million boost to build their global brand, the Department for International Trade and the BPI – the UK record labels’ association that promotes British music – announced on 8 October.

In “Sharing and Preserving Indigenous Knowledge of the Arctic Using Information and Communications Technology,” researchers Heidi McCann and Peter Pulsifer from the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)), and Carolina Behe from the Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska analyze how digital technologies afford and impact the preservation of documented Indigenous Knowledge (IK) while maintaining cultural significance and intellectual property rights.