AFP Asia Business

Under a vast canopy of tents in the Saudi city of Jeddah, religious artefacts are on display alongside contemporary art pieces, part of the kingdom’s bid to transform its ultraconservative image.The second edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale, titled “And All That Is In Between”, features as its centrepiece segments of the “kiswa”, the black cloth embroidered with gold and silver that covers the Kaaba, the cubic building towards which all Muslims pray.Hundreds more works are on display at the west terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport in the coastal city, including valuable objects on loan from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and the Louvre in Paris, and rare artefacts from the Vatican Library such as a medieval Quran in Hebrew script.”This bringing together of the contemporary and the past really emphasises the change that Saudi Arabia is going through,” said Saudi artist Muhannad Shono, curator of the exhibition.Home to Islam’s holiest sites, the kingdom has long been dominated by Wahhabism, a strict interpretation of Islam that prohibits the representation of human and animal figures.As a result of the prohibition of such depictions in most Sunni Muslim schools of thought, geometric patterns came to be widely prevalent in Islamic art.But the biennale in Jeddah features medieval Persian illuminations, including royal portraits, as well as a fountain designed by Yemeni-Indonesian artist Anhar Salem whose mosaic tiles, assembled by colour using artificial intelligence, are made up of avatars sourced online.- ‘Traditional conceptions’ – “We have traditional conceptions of Islam and its history, which I feel we should begin to re-examine from a new perspective,” said visitor Abdelelah Qutub, a 31-year-old architect from Mecca.A few metres (yards) away, Franco-Lebanese artist Tamara Kalo had recreated the camera obscura, the precursor to the modern camera invented in the 11th century by Muslim philosopher Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen).Kalo told AFP her installation, made out of copper, sought to raise the question of “what it means to see and what it means to be a witness”.The exhibition has also encouraged artists to be bold with scale, as can be seen from a massive disc covered in petrol — a nod to Saudi Arabia’s position as the world’s leading crude exporter — that spins endlessly.Its creator, Italian artist Arcangelo Sassolino, said: “For me it represents time… it’s something that keeps evolving while we’re watching the piece.”Under his “Vision 2030”, de facto Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has sought to transform the kingdom’s image, weighed down by decades of repression and ultraconservatism.According to James Dorsey of the National University of Singapore, Saudi authorities are seeking to address what he described as a “reputation deficit”, having long been considered a “secretive, ultraconservative kingdom”.Efforts to project “openness”, including the biennale, are “key to the success of Vision 2030″, he said.- ‘Share space with the West’ -Strategically located in a terminal adjacent to the one reserved for Muslims on a pilgrimage to Mecca, the Jeddah biennale attracts a mix of both art enthusiasts and pilgrims.”We had pilgrims coming from over the road here to see the Mecca and Medina pavilions last time,” said art historian Julian Raby.The first edition in 2023 attracted 600,000 visitors — approaching the Venice Biennale’s 700,000 visitors in 2024.Now, the Islamic Arts Biennale aims to exceed a million visitors, many from abroad.”That internationalism is exactly the opposite of how many people consider Saudi Arabia. They look at Saudi Arabia and consider it as a cloistered country,” said Raby.”The Islamic world has never been cloistered, it’s been in dialogue, dynamicIn front of her monumental sculpture, a black steel bush of roses floating above a fountain, Jordanian artist Raya Kassisieh was proud to benefit from the platform provided by the biennale.”We are able and at the level to converse and share space with the West,” she said.

China last year began construction on projects with the greatest combined coal power capacity since 2015, jeopardising the country’s goal to peak carbon emissions by 2030, according to a report published Thursday.The world’s second-largest economy is the biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that drive climate change, but also a renewable energy powerhouse. It plans …

China’s 2024 coal projects threaten climate goals: report Read More »

Wall Street stocks mostly fell Wednesday after US inflation data exceeded expectations, while the euro strengthened on signs Russia and Ukraine could be closer to a peace agreement.Major US indices began the day firmly in the red after January US consumer price index data showed inflation grew, raising questions about whether the Federal Reserve’s progress …

US stocks mostly lower on inflation, euro gains on Ukraine peace hopes Read More »

The wife of Elkana Bohbot, a Colombian-Israeli man being held hostage by Hamas, said Wednesday she had received proof he was alive and denounced the “terrible” conditions in which he was being held.In an interview with Colombia’s Blu Radio, Rebecca Gonzalez said that she received news of her husband from Ohad Ben Ami, one of the three hostages released by Hamas last weekend.The three, whose emaciated appearance caused widespread shock, were released under the fifth exchange of prisoners since Israel and Hamas agreed a truce in their 15-month war on January 19.”He (Ben Ami) brought me proof of life from my husband. I received a message, I even received a song in which he asks me to be strong,” Gonzalez, who is Colombian, said.”He is alive, and we need to get him out of there immediately,” she pleaded.Relating Ben Ami’s account of his captivity, which left him in a “severe nutritional state” according to doctors, Gonzalez said: “They are in tunnels, they are not allowed to see the light, they are not allowed to go out for air.”She said her husband was living on a piece of bread a day, “very little water” and was “mistreated physically and psychologically.”Bohbot, who hails from the town of Mevasseret Tzion near Jerusalem and has a young son, was one of the producers of the Supernova music festival, which Hamas gunmen stormed during their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.His childhood friends and fellow rave organizers Michael and Osher Vaknin were killed in the attack.A Hamas video from October 7 posted online showed Bohbot, now aged 36, bound and injured in the face, being held by the Palestinian armed group.Colombian President Gustavo Petro gave him Colombian nationality a month after the attacks.His wife asked the leftist Petro, a fierce critic of Israel’s devastating retaliatory campaign in Gaza, to use his visits to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar this week to press for Bohbot’s release.The Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.The group also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has reduced most of Gaza to rubble and killed at least 48,222 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. The United Nations considers the ministry’s figures reliable.

Israel on Wednesday threatened to launch a “new” war on Hamas and implement US President Donald Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from the ravaged Gaza Strip if the militants do not release hostages this weekend.The remarks by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz came shortly after Palestinian group Hamas said it would not bow down to US and Israeli “threats” over the release of hostages under a fragile truce deal.Mediators Qatar and Egypt were pushing to salvage the ceasefire agreement that came into effect last month, a Palestinian source and a diplomat familiar with the talks told AFP, while Hamas said its top negotiator was in Cairo.The truce has largely halted more than 15 months of fighting and seen Israeli captives released in small groups in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody.But the deal, currently in its 42-day first phase, has come under increasing strain.The warring sides, which have yet to agree on the next phases of the truce, have traded accusations of violations, spurring concern that the violence could resume.Katz said Israel would resume its war if Hamas fails to free captives on Saturday, when a sixth hostage-prisoner exchange was scheduled under the terms of the agreement.Hamas has said it would postpone the release citing Israeli violations, and hours later, Trump warned that “hell” would break loose if the Palestinian militant failed to release “all” hostages by then.If fighting resumes, Katz said, “the new Gaza war… will not end without the defeat of Hamas and the release of all the hostages.””It will also allow the realisation of US President Trump’s vision for Gaza,” he added.Israel has repeatedly vowed to defeat Hamas and release all hostages since the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.Analyst Mairav Zonszein of the International Crisis Group told AFP that despite their public disputes, the warring sides were still interested in maintaining the truce and have not “given up on anything yet”.”They’re just playing power games,” she said.- ‘Lives depend on it’ -In Tel Aviv, Israeli student Mali Abramovitch, 28, said that it was “terrible to think” that the next group of hostages would not be released “because Israel allegedly violated the conditions, which is nonsense”.”We can’t let them (Hamas) play with us like this… It’s simply not acceptable.”In southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis, 48-year-old Saleh Awad told AFP he felt “anxiety and fear”, saying that “Israel is seeking any pretext to reignite the war… and displace” the territory’s inhabitants.Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem warned that hostages would not be released without Israeli compliance with the deal.”Our position in clear, and we will not accept the language of American and Israeli threats,” said Qassem, after Netanyahu threatened to “resume intense fighting” if hostages were not released by Saturday.Last week’s hostage release sparked anger in Israel and beyond after Hamas paraded three emaciated hostages before a crowd and forced them to speak, while Hamas has accused Israel of failing to meet its aid commitments under the agreement.Hamas has insisted it remained “committed to the ceasefire” and said its chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya was in Cairo on Wednesday for meetings and to monitor “the implementation of the ceasefire agreement”.Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News, citing an Egyptian official, said that mediators in Cairo and Doha were “intensifying their diplomatic efforts in an attempt to save the Gaza ceasefire agreement”.UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged Hamas to proceed with the planned release and “avoid at all costs resumption of hostilities in Gaza”.The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has facilitated the hostage-prisoner swaps, urged the parties to maintain the ceasefire.”Hundreds of thousands of lives depend on it,” including “all of the remaining hostages” and Gazans who “need respite from violence and access to life-saving humanitarian aid”, the ICRC said.- Trump’s plan – Trump had proposed taking over Gaza and moving its more than two million residents to Jordan or Egypt — a plan experts say would violate international law but which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “revolutionary”.Hamas called for worldwide “solidarity marches” over the weekend to denounce “the plans to displace our Palestinian people from their land”.Israel’s Katz last week ordered the army to prepare for “voluntary” departures from Gaza. The military said it has already begun reinforcing its troops around Gaza.Trump reaffirmed his Saturday deadline for the hostage release when hosting Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday.In a phone call Wednesday, Abdullah and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said they were united in supporting the “full implementation” of the ceasefire, “the continued release of hostages and prisoners, and facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid”, according to a statement from the Egyptian presidency.Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,222 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures which the UN considers reliable from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.burs-ser/ami/ysm

Israel on Wednesday threatened to launch a new war on Hamas that would lead to the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s plan to displace all Palestinians from Gaza if the militants do not release hostages this weekend.The remarks by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz came shortly after Palestinian group Hamas said it would not bow down to US and Israeli “threats” over the release of hostages under a fragile truce deal.Mediators Qatar and Egypt were pushing to salvage the ceasefire agreement that came into effect last month, a Palestinian source and a diplomat familiar with the talks told AFP, while Hamas said its top negotiator was in Cairo.The truce has largely halted more than 15 months of fighting and seen Israeli captives released in small groups in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody.But the deal, currently in its 42-day first phase, has come under increasing strain.The warring sides, which have yet to agree on the next phases of the truce, have traded accusations of violations, spurring concern that the violence could resume.Katz said Israel would resume its war if Hamas fails to free captives on Saturday, when a sixth hostage-prisoner exchange was scheduled under the terms of the agreement.Hamas has said it would postpone the release citing Israeli violations, and hours later, Trump warned that “hell” would break loose if the Palestinian militant failed to release “all” hostages by then.If fighting resumes, Katz said, “the new Gaza war will be different in intensity from the one before the ceasefire, and it will not end without the defeat of Hamas and the release of all the hostages.””It will also allow the realisation of US President Trump’s vision for Gaza,” he added.Katz on Thursday ordered the army to prepare for “voluntary” departures from Gaza.The Israeli military said it has already begun reinforcing its troops around Gaza.Trump had proposed taking over the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and moving its more than two million residents to Jordan or Egypt — a plan experts say would violate international law but which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “revolutionary”.- ‘Anxiety’ – Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said on Wednesday that Israel was “evading the implementation of several provisions of the ceasefire agreement”, warning that hostages would not be released without Israeli compliance with the deal.”Our position is clear, and we will not accept the language of American and Israeli threats,” said Qassem, after Netanyahu threatened to “resume intense fighting” if hostages were not released by Saturday.Last week’s hostage release sparked anger in Israel and beyond after Hamas paraded three emaciated hostages before a crowd and forced them to speak.On the Palestinian side, Hamas accused Israel of failing to meet its commitments under the agreement, including on aid, and cited the deaths of three Gazans over the weekend.Hamas has insisted it remained “committed to the ceasefire”, and said that a delegation headed by chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya was in Cairo for meetings and to monitor “the implementation of the ceasefire agreement”.A diplomat and a Palestinian source familiar with the talks both told AFP on condition of anonymity that mediators were engaged with the parties to resolve the dispute.UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged Hamas to proceed with the planned release and “avoid at all costs resumption of hostilities in Gaza”.In Tel Aviv, Israeli student Mali Abramovitch, 28, said that it was “terrible to think” that the next group of hostages would not be released “because Israel allegedly violated the conditions, which is nonsense”.”We can’t let them (Hamas) play with us like this… It’s simply not acceptable.”In southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis, 48-year-old Saleh Awad told AFP he felt “anxiety and fear”, saying that “Israel is seeking any pretext to reignite the war… and displace” the territory’s inhabitants.- Rebuild ‘without displacing’ Gazans -Trump reaffirmed his Saturday deadline for the hostage release when hosting Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday.In a phone call Wednesday, Abdullah and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said they were united in supporting the “full implementation” of the ceasefire, “the continued release of hostages and prisoners, and facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid”, according to a statement from the Egyptian presidency.The two leaders called for Gaza’s “immediate” reconstruction “without displacing the Palestinian people from their land”.Egypt, a US ally which borders Gaza, earlier said it planned to “present a comprehensive vision” for the reconstruction of the Palestinian territory.A UN report has said that more than $53 billion will be required to rebuild Gaza and end the “humanitarian catastrophe” there.The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,222 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures which the UN considers reliable from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.burs-ser/ami/ysm