Art & Culture | WPN World People News

Pioneering excavations within the Sacred Garden of Lumbini, Nepal, a UNESCO World Heritage site long identified as the birthplace of the Buddha, uncovered the remains of a previously unknown timber structure under a series of brick temples. Laid out on the same design as those above it, the timber structure contains an open space in the center that links to the nativity story of the Buddha himself.

The selection panel appointed to evaluate applications from Italian cities for the title of European Capital of Culture 2019 met in Rome and recommended that Cagliari, Lecce, Matera, Perugia, Ravenna and Siena should be short-listed. Once this recommendation has been confirmed by Italy, the preselected cities will complete their applications by next summer. The selection panel will meet again in the third quarter of 2014 to recommend the Italian city which will be the European Capital of Culture in 2019.

Sankore mosque in Mali’s fabled city of Timbuktu.

In the second October plenary session, Parliament voted to reverse cuts to the EU's 2014 budget proposed by the Council and amended the current budget to cover its €2.7 billion deficit. MEPs also voted for suspending the US-EU deal on tracking terrorist financial activities as a response to the alleged tapping of Europeans' bank data. Aung San Suu Kyi received her Sakharov prize in what president Martin Schulz described as a great moment for which an entire generation had been waiting for.

A woman drives a car in Saudi Arabia on October 22, 2013.

A new database developed by the British Universities Film and Video Council and University of Portsmouth researchers as part of an AHRC-funded project, Channel 4 and British Film Culture, reveals the impact of ‘Press Packs’ on the success of the UK’s new ‘fourth channel’, and provides a searchable resource for media historians.

Singled out as one of three finalists in its category and chosen from among more than 900 entries, Conservation International’s film, Field Chronicles: Chingaza – The Water’s Journey was honored with “Best Educational Program” at the prestigious Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival last week in Wyoming.

The Ark of Return, the winning design of an international competition for the Permanent Memorial in Honour of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade was unveiled by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki moon at a ceremony at UN Headquarters.

The mission organized with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and local authorities found that while the buildings were not badly damaged, 600 of the Museum’s collection of 1080 artefacts were missing (see Inventory from the Mallawi National Museum).